AN  INTRODUCTORY  COURSE  IN 
ARGUMENTATION 


BY 

FRANCES    M.    PERRY 

INSTRUCTOR   IN   ENGLISH   IN    WELLESLEY   COLLEGE 


NEW  YORK  •:•  CINCINNATI  •:•  CHICAGO 

AMERICAN    BOOK    COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1906,  BY 
FRANCES  M.  PERRY. 


ARGUMENTATION. 

w.  P.    5 


KATHERINE    BATES 


PREFACE 

An  Introductory  Course  in  Argumentation  has  grown 
out  of  my  need  of  a  text-book  presenting  the  subject 
of  brief-drawing  and  argumentative  composition  in 
so  elementary  a  manner  as  to-  make  it  practical  for 
a  short  composition  course  for  college  freshmen. 
My  endeavor  has  been  to  simplify  the  subject  to 
suit  the  understanding  of  students  in  the  first  years 
of  college,  or  the  last  years  of  secondary  school,  with- 
out lessening  its  educative  value. 

In  the  first  place,  the  student  is  practiced  in  the 
processes  of  argumentation  without  the  added  diffi- 
culty of  research.  No  teacher  of  narration  begins 
his  work  by  demanding  that  a  student  write  a  his- 
torical romance  requiring  serious  preliminary  study 
of  the  period  in  which  it  is  placed  —  he  begins,  rather, 
with  simple  pieces  of  work  exercising  the  student's 
power  of  imagination  on  material  that  lies  within  his 
experience.  The  beginner  in  the  study  of  argumenta- 
tion should,  in  like  manner,  be  set  to  work  to  exer- 
cise his  reasoning  power  on  familiar  material.  This 
is  not  a  loss,  but  a  gain.  Even  advanced  students, 
when  allowed  to  write  at  the  start  on  subjects  upon 
s 


6  PREFACE 

which  they  must  "  read  up,"  develop  little  power  to 
argue;  they  too  often  count  their  work  done  when 
they  have  gathered  from  a  book  and  summarized  the 
arguments  of  another.  The  student  required  to  argue 
on  material  already  at  his  command  finds  pleasure  in 
turning  it  over,  seeing  it  in  new  lights,  in  new  rela- 
tions, with  new  significance,  and  argument  seems  to 
him  serviceable  and  pleasant  work.  I  do  not,  how- 
ever, advocate  suiting  endeavor  to  power,  and  at  the 
close  of  the  course  the  student  is  instructed  in 
methods  of  research  with  the  expectation  that  he 
will  be  ready  to  encounter  added  difficulties. 

The  subject  is  further  simplified  by  leaving  persua- 
sion out  of  consideration  until  the  student  under- 
stands conviction.  This,  too,  is  a  gain ;  the  student 
who  begins  by  suiting  his  argument  to  the  hearer  too 
often  comes  to  value  sophistry  above  thoroughness 
and  accuracy ;  like  a  sharp  bargainer  he  prides  him- 
self more  on  a  fraudulent  victory  than  on  an  honest 
one.  With  him  specious  reasoning  and  "  bluff  "  are  at 
a  premium,  and  to  outwit  and  circumvent  his  antago- 
nist by  fair  means  or  foul,  to  "make  a  case,"  is  his 
unscholarly  ideal.  The  student  whose  interest  is 
first  enlisted  in  making  a  strong  argument,  can 
afterward  be  brought  to  see  the  importance  of  pre- 
senting it  with  tact  and  economy,  without  danger  of 
confusing  sound  argument  with  mere  tricks  of  oratory. 

The  instructor  will  find  that  simplification  has  been 


PREFACE  7 

effected  without  evasion  of  difficulties.  While  the 
course  is  intended  to  be  as  simple  as  possible,  it  is 
not  intended  to  permit  any  otiose  imitation  of  the 
form  of  argument  without  the  substance.  The  diffi- 
culties are  not  slighted;  they  are  taken  by  easy 
stages,  and  every  point  is  clinched  by  drill  in  exer- 
cises hard  enough  to  stimulate  the  average  student  to 
vigorous  work.  The  two  methods  in  use  in  teaching 
argumentation,  the  brief-drawing  method  and  the 
syllogistic  method,  naturally  assist  and  complement 
each  other.  My  aim  has  been  to  combine  these 
methods  so  that  the  one  will  help  the  student  to 
understand  the  other. 

While  the  course  calls  for  a  sustained  piece  of 
work,  its  preparation  and  criticism  by  installments 
are  provided  for,  so  that  there  is  no  dearth  of  work 
during  the  course  and  no  accumulation  of  work  at  its 
close. 

A  good  course  in  elementary  argumentation  should 
be  introduced  into  every  high  school  composition 
course.  There  is  no  form  of  discourse  that  will  do 
so  much  to  break  a  student  of  hand-to-mouth  writing 
and  thinking,  that  will  so  give  him  the  habit  of  look- 
ing beyond  his  nose,  of  doing  work  in  a  purposeful 
way,  with  a  sense  of  the  relation  of  parts,  of  the 
structure  of  the  whole  composition.  It  facilitates 
development  out  of  the  acquisitive,  transmitting  stage 
into  reflective,  modifying,  originating  power. 


8  PREFACE 

Acknowledgment  is  due  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Company  for  permission  to  use  certain  copyrighted 
material ;  also  to  the  Century  Company  for  the  selec- 
tion from  N.  S.  Shaler's  American  Highways ;  to 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons  for  the  selections  from 
Thompson  Seton's  Wild  Animals  I  have  Known, 
and  Richard  Harding  Davis's  Gallegher  and  Other 
Stories  ;  and  to  Small,  Maynard  &  Company  for  the 
selection  from  Mrs.  Charlotte  Perkins  Stetson's  In 
this  Our  World. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    THE  PURPOSE  AND  THE  USES  OF  ARGUMENTATION    .        .11 
II.    THE  PROCESS  OF  ARGUMENTATION 

A.  Finding  the  Proposition      .         .         .         .         .         .15 

1.  Selecting  the  Question        .         .         .         .         .17 

2.  Deciding  on  the  Proposition       ....       26 

3.  Stating  the  Proposition 41 

B.  Proving  the  Proposition 49 

X.   Organization  of  Material  —  The  Brief        .        .       51 

a.  The  Importance  of  the  Brief     .         .         -51 

b.  The  Introduction  to  the  Brief    ...       57 

(1)  Material  and  Immaterial  Issues        .       57 

(2)  The  Test  of  a  Good  Introduction    .       65 

(3)  Added   Requirements   for   a   Good 

Introduction         ....       74 
f.   The  Proof 84 

(1)  The  Classification  of  Evidence         .       84 

(2)  The  Quantity  of  Evidence        .         .     107 

(3)  The  Kind  of  Evidence     .         .         .128 

(4)  Refutation 148 

2.   Presentation  of  Material  —  The  Forensic  .         .179 

a.  The  Development  of  the  Forensic      .         .179 

b.  The  Articulation  of  the  Parts     .         .         .193 

c.  The  Tone  of  the  Forensic — Persuasion     .     201 

C.  Research     .        .        .        •        .        .        .        .        .     213 
INDEX         «       • '.'•>.       .225 


THE   PURPOSE  AND   THE   USES   OF 
ARGUMENTATION 

THE  purpose  of  argument  is  to  make  others  believe 
as  we  believe.  It  is  not  enough,  however,  to  strive 
to  reach  that  end  by  assertions  —  we  argue  only 
when  we  offer  reason  and  evidence  to  sustain  our 
assertions.  To  argue,  then,  is  to  seek  to  establish 
the  truth  or  the  falsity  of  a  proposition  or  statement 
by  means  of  evidence. 

This  is  for  none  of  us  an  untried  field  of  endeavor. 
Ever  since  we  have  had  preferences  we  have  tried  to 
persuade  others  of  their  rationality.  As  children  we 
were  not  content  to  announce  to  our  mothers  that 
we  wished  to  go  to  a  neighbor's  house  to  play ;  most 
of  us  were  eloquent  in  adducing  reasons  for  the  wish; 
"  because  "  is  a  word  with  whose  use  we  have  long 
been  familir.r. 

The  type  of  the  trained  arguer  is  the  lawyer,  who 
makes  it  his  chief  study  and  practice  to  bring  others 
to  think  as  he  wishes  them  to  think.  But  the  leader 
in  any  walk  of  life,  if  he  would  control  the  thoughts 
and  actions  of  others,  needs  to  be,  to  some  extent, 
master  of  the  professional  advocate's  art.  Daniel 


12  PURPOSE  OF   ARGUMENTATION 

Boone,  persuading  his  old  neighbors  to  face  the 
hardships  of  the  frontier ;  Morse,  urging  upon  capi- 
talists the  feasibility  of  the  electric  telegraph ;  Lin- 
coln, proclaiming  to  voters  that  the  Union  could  not 
exist  half  slave  and  half  free;  Charles  W.  Eliot, 
advocating  the  elective  system  in  education, — such 
men  as  these  have  had  to  convince  and  persuade. 
Even  one  who  has  no  great  cause  to  advocate  and 
no  aspiration  to  influence  others  must  in  the  simplest 
social  and  business  relations  frequently  employ  argu- 
ment, pronounce  an  opinion  and  give  reasons  for  it. 
Do  you  like  your  instructor's  method  of  teaching 
German  ?  Do  you  prefer  Monday  or  Saturday  for  a 
holiday  ?  Who  is  your  candidate  for  class  president  ? 
Who  is  your  favorite  novelist  ?  Do  you  believe  in 
co-education  ?  These  are  questions  that  can  not  be 
disposed  of  with  monosyllables.  We  are  expected 
to  know  our  own  minds,  to  have  views  on  many  sub- 
jects and  to  be  able  to  account  for  them.  "  Because  " 
is  in  disrepute  not  because  of  the  mental  process  it 
implies,  but  because  the  word  so  often  exists  with 
little  or  none  of  the  argument  of  which  it  is  the  sign 
to  justify  it. 

The  need  to  argue  is  not  confined  to  specialists, 
but  the  ability  to  do  so  in  a  clear,  convincing  way 
where  the  subject-matter  is  complex  usually  belongs 
only  to  those  who  have  had  special  training  in  the 
process  of  argumentation.  The  tools  demanded  are 


PURPOSE   OF   ARGUMENTATION  13 

familiar  —  exposition,  description,  narration  ;  the  use 
to  which  they  are  put  is,  as  we  have  seen,  familiar. 
But  the  purposeful  selection  of  just  what  is  needed 
to  prove  a  proposition,  and  the  effective  organization 
of  it  into  an  argument,  call  for  a  breadth  of  view,  a 
power  of  inference,  and  a  sense  of  relationship  that 
rarely  exist  without  cultivation. 

Perhaps  more  important  than  the  arguments  we 
enter  into  with  others,  are  those  inner  debates  that 
arise  over  conflicting  duties,  policies,  and  pleasures, 
and  must  be  settled  before  no  audience  outside  of 
ourselves :  Shall  I  tell  the  truth  though  it  injures  my 
friend  ?  Shall  I  go  to  the  theatre  when  my  mother 
disapproves  ?  Shall  I  give  this  beggar  money  ?  Shall 
I  do  this  work  which  I  do  not  care  for  because  it 
pays  well  ?  Our  own  peace  of  mind  and  much 
besides  may  depend  on  our  ability  to  gather  and  to 
weigh  the  evidence  on  both  sides  of  questions  such 
as  these. 

The  process  of  reasoning  is  useful  to  us  not  only 
in  shaping  our  own  course  of  action  and  in  influenc- 
ing others,  but  it  is  quite  essential  to  intelligent  read- 
ing or  listening,  for  it  enables  us  to  do  justice  to  the 
arguments  of  others,  to  see  their  strength  or  to  detect 
their  fallacies.  To  read  profitably  we  must  form 
conclusions  from  the  evidence  furnished  by  the 
author,  and  test  his  theories  and  conclusions  by  the 
evidence  we  have  gained  from  him  or  from  others. 


14  PURPOSE   OF   ARGUMENTATION 

Mere  acquisitiveness  is  not  a  scholarly  trait;  the 
scholar  accepts  the  contributions  of  others  as  the 
data  upon  which  to  base  his  own  judgments. 

Not  all  of  these  reasoning  processes  would  be,  in. 
the  strictest  sense,  called  argumentation,  for  argu- 
ment proper  postulates  or  assumes  a  proposition  to 
be  proved.  Reaching  the  proposition  or  conclusion 
is,  however,  in  many  cases,  the  most  vital  part  of  the 
operation.  Besides,  all  propositions  are  not  equally 
suitable  for  argument,  and  we  make  sorry  work  of 
arguing  if  we  start  with  a  poor  proposition.  For 
these  reasons  we  shall  make  it  our  business  to  find 
how  a  proposition  for  argument  is  obtained  as  well 
as  how  its  truth  or  falsity  is  demonstrated.  This 
preliminary  work  may  be  broadly  classified  under 
three  heads,  —  Selecting  the  Question,  Deciding  on 
the  Proposition,  and  Stating  the  Proposition. 


FINDING  THE    PROPOSITION 


SELECTING  THE   QUESTION 

THE  student  who  wishes  to  derive  full  benefit  from 
the  study  of  argumentation  will  do  well  to  resist  the 
temptation  to  consult  published  lists  of  questions  for 
debate  or  to  ask  some  friend  to  suggest  an  appro- 
priate subject.  The  best  question  is  one  that  grows 
out  of  one's  own  experience.  We  are  living  to  little 
purpose  if  circumstances  and  events  do  not  make  us 
think,  do  not  stimulate  in  us  questions,  and  give  rise 
to  problems  to  which  we  wish  to  find  the  answers. 
One  who  has  this  habit  of  incurious  acceptance  of 
whatever  comes  to  one  without  inquiry  can  not  be 
too  soon  rid  of  it. 

The  man  who  is  able  to  work  out  and  test  the  solu- 
tion of  problems  proposed  by  others  is  a  serviceable 
man  for  routine  work.  But  the  one  who  takes  the 
initiative,  who  suggests  the  problem,  who  proposes 
the  solution,  is  indispensable  to  progress.  Many 
surgeons  stand  ready  to  perform  the  operation  when 
the  master  surgeon  has  diagnosed  the  case  and  in- 
ferred the  source  of  the  trouble  from  the  symptoms ; 
the  schoolboy  can  test  Newton's  law  of  gravitation ; 
Columbus  had  followers  in  plenty ;  steamboats,  loco- 
motives, cotton  gins,  sewing  machines,  were  manu- 

ARGUMENTATION  —  2  17 


1 8  FINDING  THE   PROPOSITION 

factured  by  the  thousand  after  the  first  was  made ;  a 
higher  law  than  that  of  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth  having  been  uttered,  ordinary  men  can 
preach  it.  The  inventor,  pointing  the  way  to 
improved  methods ;  the  general,  foreseeing  the 
enemy's  move ;  the  prophet,  announcing  the  need  of 
social  reform,  —  these  rather  than  the  mechanic  at  his 
bench,  the  man  behind  the  gun,  the  faithful  disciple, 
are  the  men  we  wish  to  emulate.  The  quality  that 
makes  them  great  is  called  for  by  the  everyday 
affairs  of  life.  In  general,  the  head  is  more  important 
than  the  hand  ;  the  housekeeper,  not  the  servants, 
the  merchant  not  the  clerks,  the  teacher  not  the 
students,  is  held  responsible  for  the  failure  or  suc- 
cess of  the  home,  the  shop,  the  school. 

Since,  then,  to  project  is  important  as  well  as  to 
carry  into  effect,  we  must  not  let  others  do  this 
valuable  part  of  our  work  for  us.  It  is  not  enough  to 
prove  a  proposition  derived  by  another;  we  should 
not  be  willing  to  surrender  our  right  to  the  initiative 
to  any  one  else.  We  must  cultivate  the  habit  of 
originating  questions.  Let  us  look  into  our  own 
experience  and  see  if  questions  for  discussion  do  not 
suggest  themselves.  It  is  not  supposable  that  they 
will  be  questions  that  have  never  been  discussed. 
They  may  have  been  debated  for  hundreds  of  years 
and  yet  be  original  for  us.  If  a  personal  experience 
has  vitalized  the  question,  has  made  it  one  that  we 


SELECTING  THE   QUESTION  19 

have  an  actual  interest  in  seeing  answered,  or  one 
that  we  have  worked  out  to  our  own  satisfaction,  it 
is  sufficiently  our  question.  It  is  not  imposed  from 
without,  but  springs  from  within. 

Debatable  questions  may  be  argued,  but  a  good 
question  for  argument  is  not  necessarily  debatable. 
If  we  sustain  a  proposition  with  evidence,  we  argue, 
whether  or  not  there  is  anything  to  be  said  on  the 
other  side.  That  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  is  one 
of  Shakespeare's  earlier  plays  is  scarcely  open  to 
question,  but  to  prove  by  evidence  taken  from  the 
play  itself  the  immaturity  of  the  playwright  would 
make  an  interesting  argument.  It  adds  to  the  zest 
for  argument  to  take  a  question  upon  which  there  is 
difference  of  opinion. 

The  student  is  at  liberty  to  select  questions  upon 
which  he  has  made  up  his  mind  and  concerning 
which  he  wants  to  win  others  to  adopt  his  views,  or 
questions  about  whose  solution  he  is  in  doubt  and 
regarding  which  he  wishes  to  reach  a  conclusion  for 
his  own  satisfaction.  But  he  should  be  careful  to 
select  questions  that  do  not  call  for  too  much  re- 
search, questions  in  a  field  where  he  has  a  back- 
ground of  knowledge.  A  question  may  be  genuine 
enough,  the  student  may  sincerely  want  to  know  the 
answer,  but  if  the  mystery  is  easily  penetrated  and 
due  only  to  the  peculiar  ignorance  of  the  questioner, 
the  question  is  not  a  good  one  for  argument.  A  child 


20  FINDING   THE   PROPOSITION 

may  honestly  wonder  what  makes  the  clock  strike; 
why  his  father  prefers  the  pages  of  the  Sunday  paper 
that  have  no  pictures;  why  moisture  forms  on  the 
outside  of  a  glass  of  water  on  a  warm  day ;  where  the 
sun  goes  when  it  sets;  and  get  some  good  mental 
training  from  his  efforts  to  solve  these  questions,  but 
he  does  not  advance  much  in  his  search  for  truth. 
So  a  student  may  take  a  speculative  question,  and  by 
ingenious  reasoning  on  false  premises  get  beneficial 
mental  gymnastics ;  but  except  for  the  purpose  of 
humor  it  is  not  satisfying  to  put  effort  and  time  on 
problems  that  a  little  investigation  rightly  directed 
would  solve. 

A  background  of  knowledge  of  the  subject  from 
which  the  question  is  chosen  is  important  not  only 
to  prevent  the  student's  deciding  upon  questions 
based  on  easily  penetrated  difficulties,  but  also  to 
insure  his  deciding  upon  a  question  that  can  be 
discussed  in  a  sensible  way  without  too  much  study. 
One  is  ill  at  ease  in  an  unfamiliar  subject,  aware  that 
he  may  make  absurd  mistakes  where  he  least  expects 
to  do  so.  The  pressure  of  other  work  is  usually  too 
great  to  permit  a  student  in  a  composition  course  to 
add  to  the  labor  of  selecting,  arranging,  and  present- 
ing his  material  the  labor  of  finding  it. 

The  question,  then,  should  be  one  that  interests  the 
writer,  preferably  one  that  is  debatable,  one  that  has  to 
do  with  subject-matter  that  is  familiar  to  the  inquirer. 


SELECTING   THE   QUESTION  21 

EXERCISES 

1.  Tell  why  each  one  of  the  following  questions  would  or 
would  not  be  a  suitable  question  for  you  to  debate  :  — 

a.  Was  Jefferson  a  greater  statesman  than  Washington  ? 

b.  Is  English  literature  greater  than  German  literature  ? 

c.  What  is  the  best  method  of  increasing  our   national 
revenue  ? 

d.  Should  I  try  to  win  one  of  the  Cecil  Rhodes  scholar- 
ships ? 

e.  Will  flying  machines  ever  come  into  general  use  ? 

/.  Should  the  lives  of  writers  be  studied  in  literature 
classes  ? 

g.    Is  a  doctor's  life  harder  than  a  farmer's? 

h.  Was  Lady  Macbeth  more  responsible  than  Macbeth 
for  the  murder  of  Duncan  ? 

/.  Should  the  book  stacks  in  public  libraries  be  open  to 
the  public? 

j.  Should  the  department  method  of  teaching  be  intro- 
duced into  the  grammar  grades  of  the  public  schools? 

k.    Is  the  earth  spherical? 

2.  Read   the   facts  and  the  opinions   given  below,  and 
write  a  list  of  questions  for  discussion  suggested  by  them  :  — 

"  The  conscious  use  of  the  words  or  the  ideas  of  another 
without  giving  credit  to  their  author  is  called  plagiarism. 

"Students  should  remember  that  (i)  whenever  they  give 
another's  words  exactly,  quote  him,  they  should  place  the 
words  within  quotation  marks,  and  in  a  footnote  acknowl- 
edge their  indebtedness,  naming  the  source  of  the  quotation, 
giving  the  chapter  or  page,  and,  if  there  is  more  than  one 
volume  or  edition,  the  volume  and  the  edition  used;  (2) 
they  should  not  by  mere  paraphrasing  seek  to  win  credit 


22  FINDING   THE   PROPOSITION 

for  ideas  that  are  really  another's."  —  G.  P.  BAKER  :  The 
Principles  of  Argumentation. 

"Thus  Mirabeau  plagiarized  every  good  thought,  every  good 
word,  that  was  spoken  in  France.  Dumont  relates  that  he 
sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  Convention  and  heard  Mirabeau 
make  a  speech.  It  struck  Dumont  that  he  could  fit  it  with 
a  peroration,  which  he  wrote  in  pencil  immediately  and 
showed  to  Lord  Elgin,  who  sat  by  him.  Lord  Elgin  ap- 
proved it,  and  Dumont,  in  the  evening,  showed  it  to  Mira- 
beau. Mirabeau  read  it,  pronounced  it  admirable,  and 
declared  he  would  incorporate  it  into  his  harangue,  to-mor- 
row, to  the  Assembly.  '  It  is  impossible,'  said  Dumont, 
'as,  unfortunately,  I  have  shown  it  to  Lord  Elgin.'  'If  you 
have  shown  it  to  Lord  Elgin,  and  to  fifty  persons  besides,  I 
shall  still  speak  it  to-morrow ; '  and  he  did  speak  it,  with 
much  effect,  at  the  next  day's  session.  For  Mirabeau,  with 
his  overpowering  personality,  felt  that  these  things,  which 
his  presence  inspired,  were  as  much  his  own,  as  if  he  had 
said  them,  and  that  his  adoption  of  them  gave  them  their 
weight."  —  EMERSON  :  Napoleon. 

"...  The  charge  of  plagiarism  is  hardly  ever  made  but 
by  plagiarists,  and  persons  of  the  unhappy  class  who  do  not 
believe  in  honesty  but  on  evidence.  ...  I  have  so  often 
spoken,  in  the  preceding  pages,  of  Holman  Hunt's  picture 
of  the  '  Light  of  the  World,'  that  I  may  as  well,  in  this  place, 
glance  at  the  envious  charge  against  it,  of  being  plagiarized 
from  a  German  print. 

"It  is  indeed  true  that  there  was  a  painting  of  the  subject 
before ;  and  there  were,  of  course,  no  paintings  of  the  Na- 
tivity before  Raphael's  time,  nor  of  the  Last  Supper  before 
Leonardo's,  else  those  masters  could  have  laid  no  claim  to 


SELECTING  THE   QUESTION  23 

originality.  But  what  was  still  more  singular  (the  verse 
to  be  illustrated  being,  '  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and 
knock'),  the  principal  figure  in  the  antecedent  picture  was 
knocking  at  a  door,  knocked  with  its  right  hand,  and  had 
its  face  turned  to  the  spectator  !  Nay,  it  was  even  robed  in 
a  long  robe,  down  to  its  feet.  All  these  circumstances  were 
the  same  in  Mr.  Hunt's  picture ;  and  as  the  chances  evi- 
dently were  a  hundred  to  one  that  if  he  had  not  been  helped 
to  the  ideas  by  the  German  artist,  he  would  have  repre- 
sented the  figure  as  not  knocking  at  any  door,  as  turning  its 
back  to  the  spectator,  and  as  dressed  in  a  short  robe,  the 
plagiarism  was  considered  as  demonstrated.  Of  course  no 
defense  is  possible  in  such  a  case.  All  I  can  say  is  that  I 
shall  be  sincerely  grateful  to  any  unconscientious  persons  who 
will  adapt  a  few  more  German  prints  in  the  same  manner. 

"  Finally,  touching  plagiarism  in  general,  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  all  men  who  have  sense  and  feeling  are  being 
continually  helped :  they  are  taught  by  every  person  whom 
they  meet,  and  enriched  by  everything  that  falls  in  their  way. 
The  greatest  is  he  who  has  been  oftenest  aided ;  and  if  the 
attainments  of  all  human  minds  could  be  traced  to  their  real 
sources,  it  would  be  found  that  the  world  had  been  laid  most 
under  contribution  by  the  men  of  most  original  power,  and 
that  every  day  of  their  existence  deepened  their  debt  to  their 
race,  while  it  enlarged  their  gifts  to  it.  The  labor  devoted 
to  trace  the  origin  of  any  thought,  or  any  invention,  will 
usually  issue  in  the  blank  conclusion  that  there  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun ;  yet  nothing  that  is  truly  great  can  be 
altogether  borrowed ;  and  he  is  commonly  the  wisest,  and 
is  always  the  happiest,  who  receives  simply,  and  without 
envious  question,  whatever  good  is  offered  him,  with  thanks 
to  the  immediate  giver."  —  RUSKIN  :  Modern  Painters. 


24  FINDING   THE   PROPOSITION 

In  many  of  our  best  schools  and  colleges  students  found 
guilty  of  plagiarism  are  expelled. 

The  purpose  of  a  composition  course  in  school  or  col- 
lege is  not  to  secure  literary  masterpieces ;  it  is  to  train  stu- 
dents to  think  and  to  express  their  thoughts  correctly  and 
effectively. 

Shakespeare  consciously  used  the  words  and  the  ideas  of 
others  in  writing  his  plays. 

"  Facts  are  not  copyrighted ;  but  unless  a  writer  is  ac- 
cepted as  himself  an  authority,  he  is  expected  to  tell  where 
he  found  them.  Form,  that  is  order,  grouping,  is  private 
property,  copyrighted,  not  to  be  reproduced  without  paying 
royalty,  not  worth  reproducing  anyway,  since  the  whole 
point  of  writing  at  all  is  thereby  lost.  Phrase  is  as  strictly 
private  as  its  maker's  purse.  It  may,  of  course,  be  quoted, 
with  citation  as  of  fact ;  but  frequent  quotation  is  tiresome 
and  unprofitable.  Use  without  quotation  is  theft."  — 
BALDWIN:  A  College  Manual  of  Rhetoric. 

Concerning  Washington's  Farewell  Address  Norman 
Hapgood  writes  that  though  written  by  Hamilton,  "The 
credit  is  properly  given  to  Washington  by  the  world  for  the 
experience  was  his,  the  solution  his,  Hamilton  his." 

3.  Write  an  argumentative  dialogue  between  two  students 
on  one  of  the  questions  you  have  suggested. 

4.  Come  to  class  prepared  to  take  part  in  a  general  in- 
formal debate  in  which  each  member  of  the  class  will  be 
allowed  to  speak  on  either  side  of  the  question  :  Is  a  student 
in  this  class  justified  in  using  the  words  or  the  ideas  of 
another  without  giving  credit  to  the   one   who  originated 
them  ?     In  your  speech  you  should  state  some  reason  for 


SELECTING   THE   QUESTION  25 

thinking  plagiarism  justifiable  or  unjustifiable  and  give  evi- 
dence that  what  you  say  is  true. 

5.  If  all  the  tickets  to  your  Glee  Club  Concert  had  been 
sold  and  you  were  to  see  the  following  notice  on  the  bulletin 
board,  what  questions  should  you  feel  inclined  to  ask? 

Students  are  warned  not  to  resell  their  Glee  Club  Concert 
tickets  at  advanced  price.  A  severe  penalty  will  be  inflicted 
on  all  offenders.  —  BUSINESS  MANAGER  OF  GLEE  CLUB. 

6.  Look  carefully  through  Hawthorne's  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables  to  discover  whether  or  no  the  author  had  a  definite 
plan  of  the  house  in  his  mind.     Draw  a  ground  plan  of  the 
house,  and  cite  passages  from  the  book  that  make  you  think 
the  rooms  were  arranged  as  you  have  represented  them.1 

7.  Suggest  for  discussion  some  change  that  would  in  your 
opinion  benefit  your  school ;  your  town ;  a  text-book ;  some 
story  you  have  read. 

1  This  exercise  was  suggested  to  the  writer  by  the  discussion  of  the 
question  in  Mrs.  H.  A.  Davidson's  introduction  to  The  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables. 


DECIDING   ON  THE   PROPOSITION 

HAVING  selected  a  question  both  interesting  and 
familiar,  we  must  next  reach  a  conclusion  regarding 
this  question  that  can  be  stated  in  a  proposition 
which  shall  form  the  basis  for  argument. 

It  is  possible  to  make  others  believe  that  a  conclu- 
sion is  true  which  you  believe  to  be  false.  Lawyers 
doubtless  often  do  this ;  a  student  in  a  debate  course 
necessarily  sometimes  takes  what  seems  to  him  the 
weaker  side  of  the  question.  It  is  good  discipline 
for  a  student  to  be  obliged  to  see  so  clearly  the 
strong  points  ia  the  side  of  the  case  that  does  not 
enlist  his  sympathy  that  he  is  able  successfully  to 
advocate  it.  But  in  general  argumentation  it  is  not 
necessary,  and  for  some  reasons  it  seems  unwise,  to 
attempt  to  prove  what  one  does  not  believe  to  be 
true. 

In  the  first  place,  faith  in  your  case  makes  your 
work  lighter.  If  you  are  sure  you  are  in  the  right, 
it  seems  worth  while  to  exert  yourself  to  make  others 
see  as  you  see,  and  you  are  willing  to  encounter 
difficulties  to  prove  your  point.  If  you  have  no  con- 
victions either  way,  or  if  you  see  the  weakness  of 
your  own  case,  it  is  hard  to  work  with  ardor.  Rufus 
26 


DECIDING   ON   THE   PROPOSITION  2/ 

Choate  said :  "  I  care  not  how  hard  the  case  is.  It 
may  bristle  with  difficulties.  If  I  feel  that  I  am  on 
the  right  side,  that  case  I  win." 

It  was  so  distasteful  to  Abraham  Lincoln  to  make 
the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  that  he  made  it 
a  rule  to  advocate  only  the  side  that  he  believed  to  be 
right.  The  moral  force  he  consequently  threw  into 
his  argument  made  "  Honest  Abe  "  an  opponent  that 
few  could  match. 

In  the  second  place,  argument  for  argument's  sake 
leads  to  the  habit  of  specious  reasoning,  of  caring 
more  to  make  an  appearance  of  right,  than  to  make 
right  appear.  If  argument  teaches  us  merely  to 
confound  our  opponents  with  concealments,  subter- 
fuges, ridicule,  and  tricks,  it  falls  far  short  of  its  right 
purpose.  As  students  we  should  be  open  minded 
and  interested,  not  in  "  making  a  case  "  as  they  say, 
but  in  discovering  and  making  plain  the  truth,  and  a 
course  in  argumentation  should  teach  us  to  do  that. 
Too  often  the  young  orator  and  debater  takes  as  an 
example  for  emulation  the  demagogue,  the  man  who 
plays  upon  the  ignorance  and  weakness  and  prejudice 
of  his  hearers  and  relies  upon  his  skill  in  doing  so 
to  make  his  point.  The  would-be  debater  should 
look  for  models  rather  among  the  philosophers,  the 
scientists,  the  statesmen,  men  who  assume  on  the 
part  of  their  readers  and  hearers  an  intelligence 
equal  to  their  own ;  who  would  not  stoop  to  trickery 


2$  FINDING  THE  PROPOSITION 

and  devices  to  gain  adherents,  but  offer  only  such 
reasons  as  seem  to  them  convincing,  and  depend  on 
the  strength  of  their  cause  for  success. 

Since  it  is  important  to  take  the  right  side  of  an 
argument  the  student  should  not  jump  rashly  to  his 
conclusion.  He  should  decide  on  his  proposition 
only  after  careful  reasoning. 

All  reasoning  is  from  the  known  to  the  unknown. 
From  known  particular  instances  we  may  infer  an 
unknown  general  truth  ;  from  a  known  general 
truth  we  may  pronounce  concerning  an  unknown 
particular  case;  we  may  reason  from  what  is  hap- 
pening to  the  unknown  that  will  happen  or  that  has 
happened  in  the  past. 

When  from  particular  cases  that  have  come  under 
our  observation  we  infer  general  truths,  we  reason 
inductively.  The  inductive  method  of  reasoning  is 
the  laboratory  method  ;  the  scientist  performs  the 
experiment,  makes  his  observations,  and  so  accumu- 
lates the  data  upon  which  to  base  a  generalization. 
But  this  method  of  reasoning  is  not  used  by  the 
scientist  alone.  Men,  women,  and  children  daily 
generalize  from  their  experience. 

A  woman  on  moving  from  the  country  into  the 
city,  finding  that  Mrs.  Stone,  Mrs.  Flint,  and  Mrs. 
Steel  manifest  no  interest  in  her  affairs,  and  re- 
membering how  Mrs.  Hay,  Mrs.  Greene,  and  Mrs. 
Field  listened  with  eagerness  to  her  domestic  ex- 


DECIDING   ON   THE   PROPOSITION  29 

periences,  may  make  the  generalization  that  city 
people  are  less  sympathetic  than  country  people. 
Her  line  of  reasoning  is  a  safe  one  :  what  is  true  of 
the  several  members  of  a  class  is  true  of  the  class. 
The  scientist  observes  that  each  woodpecker  he 
examines  has  a  strong  chisel-like  bill,  rigid  and 
acuminate  tail  feathers,  toes  arranged  in  pairs,  etc., 
and  concludes  that  all  woodpeckers  have  these  charac- 
teristics. The  countrywoman  and  the  scientist  both 
draw  conclusions  from  the  facts  that  have  come 
within  their  observation.  But  the  generalization 
reached  by  the  biologist  is  more  trustworthy  than 
that  reached  by  the  countrywoman.  The  difference 
lies  in  the  fact  that  he  has  observed  an  almost 
unlimited  number  of  woodpeckers,  while  she  has 
observed  a  limited  number  of  country  people  and 
a  limited  number  of  city  people.  He  has  observed 
exactly  and  has  counted  as  common  only  those  at- 
tributes that  are  characteristic  of  all.  She,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  inaccurately  attributed  the  broad  term 
"  sympathy  "  to  her  country  friends  because  they  have 
been  ready  to  enter  into  her  personal  affairs;  she 
has  denied  it  to  her  city  acquaintances  because  they 
treated  it  as  a  slight  matter  that  her  unexpected 
guest  found  the  dinner  table  covered  with  a  striped 
cloth  rather  than  a  spotted  one,  or  that  she  had  to  wash 
her  windows  with  unreasonable  frequency,  and  so  on. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  she  should  find  country 


30  FINDING  THE   PROPOSITION 

people  who  could  not  share  her  interest  in  these 
matters,  and  city  people  who  could.  Moreover,  her 
test  is  not  a  significant  one.  On  closer  acquaintance 
and  tried  by  other  measures  Mrs.  Steel  might  prove 
more  truly  sympathetic  than  Mrs.  Field. 

In  inductive  reasoning  one  should  be  careful  to 
study  a  large  number  of  facts  on  which  to  base  his 
conclusions  and  should  make  no  claim  that  the  facts 
do  not  justify.  After  reading  The  Snow  Image,  The 
Great  Stone  Face,  Drowne's  Wooden  Image,  Wake- 
field,  one  might  draw  the  conclusion  that  Hawthorne's 
stories  are  light  and  pleasing;  while  a  reader  of 
The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  Ethan  Brand,  and  The 
Scarlet  Letter  might  pronounce  the  same  author's 
works  morbid.  It  is  possible,  too,  that  other  readers 
pronouncing  on  the  same  books  might  find  the  sec- 
ond group  not  morbid  and  the  first  not  light. 

Generalizations  may  be  unreliable  because  they  are 
supported  by  too  few  specific  instances  or  because  the 
supporting  assertions  are  in  themselves  not  true.  I 
may  assert  that  every  person  in  the  room  has  read 
David  Copperfield,  for  Mary  Smith  has  read  it,  James 
Moore  has  read  it,  Fred  Harrison  has  read  it,  and 
Flora  Mason  has  read  it  And  Thomas  Wilson  may 
remind  me  that  he  is  present  and  that  he  has  not 
read  the  book.  Or  Fred  Harrison  may  say,  "  You 
are  mistaken;  I  could  talk  with  you  about  Mr.  Mi- 
cawber,  Uriah  Heep,  Betsey  Trotwood,  and  Peggotty 


DECIDING  ON   THE   PROPOSITION  31 

because  my  father  often  quotes  them,  but  I  have 
never  read  David  Copperfield"  In  either  case  my 
generalization  is  disproved. 

There  are  various  ways  of  becoming  aware  of  an 
unknown  specific  truth.  I  may  know  an  apple  is 
sour  because  I  have  tasted  it.  I  may  know  it  through 
the  experience  of  another ;  or  I  may  infer  that  it  is 
sour  from  certain  observed  facts.  I  may  infer  that  it 
is  sour  because  I  know  from  what  tree  it  was  picked, 
and  past  experience  has  led  me  to  believe  that  the 
tree  in  question  bears  only  sour  apples.  I  may  infer 
that  the  apple  is  sour  because  it  is  small  and  green 
and  hard,  and  past  experience  has  taught  me  that 
apples  having  that  appearance  are  sour.  Or  I  may 
infer  that  the  apple  is  sour  from  the  fact  that  the  boy 
eating  it  is  puckering  up  his  face  just  as  I  have  done 
when  I  have  tasted  sour  apples. 

In  making  each  of  these  inferences  or  deductions 
I  have  reached  an  unknown  fact  about  a  particular 
apple  through  familiarity  with  certain  classes  of 
apples  and  knowledge  of  the  particular  apple  that 
enabled  me  to  put  it  into  the  known  class.  I  know 
concerning  all  apples  that  grow  on  a  certain  tree  that 
they  are  sour.  I  know  that  this  particular  apple  may 
be  classed  as  the  fruit  of  that  tree.  Then,  since  each 
member  of  a  class  must  have  the  attributes  of  the  class, 
this  apple  must  have  the  attribute  sourness  that  has 
been  predicated  of  all  the  apples  that  grow  on  that  tree. 


32  FINDING  THE   PROPOSITION 

My  reasoning  simply  expressed  is, 

All  apples  that  grow  on  that  tree  are  sour. 
This  apple  grew  on  that  tree. 
This  apple  is  sour. 

If  it  is  granted  that  all  the  eggs  in  the  refrigerator 
are  fresh,  then  those  in  the  basket  must  be  fresh,  for 
the  basket  is  in  the  refrigerator.  If  all  the  men  on 
a  ball  team  are  known  to  be  good  players  and  I  can 
show  that  any  individual  is  a  member  of  the  team,  I 
need  no  further  argument  to  prove  him  a  good  player. 

This  combination  of  assertions,  the  predication  of 
an  attribute  to  a  class,  the  assertion  that  a  particular 
object  or  objects  belong  to  that  class,  and  the  assertion 
that  the  particular  object  has  the  attribute  ascribed 
to  the  class,  is  called  a  syllogism.  The  three  prop- 
ositions are  called  respectively  the  major  premise, 
the  minor  premise,  and  the  conclusion. 

Major  premise. —  All  members  of  the  Symphony  Orches- 
tra are  skilled  musicians. 

Minor  premise.  —  Mr.  Forbes  is  a  member  of  the  Sym- 
phony Orchestra. 

Conclusion.  —  Mr.  Forbes  is  a  skilled  musician. 

In  ordinary  speech  a  syllogism  is  usually  contracted 
into  an  enthymeme ;  that  is,  only  two  of  the  three 
propositions  are  expressed,  as  Mr.  Forbes  is  a  skilled 
musician,  for  he  is  a  member  of  the  Symphony 
Orchestra ;  or  Mr.  Forbes  is  a  skilled  musician,  for 
all  members  of  the  Symphony  Orchestra  are  skilled 


DECIDING   ON   THE   PROPOSITION  33 

musicians ;  or  Mr.  Forbes  is  a  member  of  the  Sym- 
phony Orchestra,  and  all  members  of  the  Symphony 
Orchestra  are  skilled  musicians. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  third  proposition  may  be 
readily  inferred  from  the  other  two.  Only  three 
terms  are  possible  in  a  syllogism,  and  any  two  prop- 
ositions must  contain  all  three  of  them,  since  the 
major  premise  has  for  its  predicate  the  major  term  of 
the  syllogism  ;  the  minor  premise  has  for  its  subject 
the  minor  term  of  the  syllogism ;  the  conclusion  has 
for  its  subject  the  minor  term,  for  its  predicate  the 
major  term ;  and  the  middle  term  occurs  as  the 
subject  of  the  major  premise  and  the  predicate  of 
the  minor  premise. 

In  the  syllogism  last  considered  the  members  of  the 
Symphony  Orchestra  is  the  middle  term  ;  skilled  musi- 
cians is  the  major  term,  and  Mr.  Forbes  is  the  minor 
term.  The  middle  term  is  the  known  class;  the 
minor  term,  the  partly  known  individual  member  of 
that  class ;  the  major  term,  the  attribute  that  is  known 
to  belong  to  the  class  and  hence  to  the  individual 
member  of  the  class. 

It  is  clear  that  in  order  that  the  truth  of  the  con- 
clusion should  inevitably  follow  from  the  premises 
the  major  premise  must  be  universal;  that  is,  every 
member  of  the  class  must  be  included.  If  there  are 
any  exceptions,  if  some  members  of  the  Orchestra  are 
not  skilled  musicians,  the  fact  that  Mr.  Forbes  is  a 

ARGUMENTATION  —  3 


34  FINDING  THE  PROPOSITION 

member  of  the  Orchestra  will  not  prove  him  a  skilled 
musician.  All  is  the  sign  of  the  universal  affirmative 
proposition. 

Other  forms  of  syllogisms  are  possible,  but  confu- 
sion and  difficulty  will  be  avoided  by  following  the 
form  given.  If  the  major  premise  is  not  an  affirma- 
tive universal  proposition,  it  should  be  made  so.  If 
we  take  the  premises,  No  artist  is  indifferent  to  criti- 
cism, and  Mr.  Black  is  an  artist,  we  can  not  take  the 
predicate  of  the  major  premise  unchanged  as  the 
predicate  of  the  conclusion. 

But  the  major  premise  may  be  ob verted  or  changed 
to  an  affirmative  statement  without  changing  its 
meaning.  No  artist  is  indifferent  to  criticism,  may 
be  changed  to,  All  artists  are  sensitive  to  criticism  ;  or 
it  may  be  more  accurately  changed  by  using  all  where 
no  was  used  in  the  subject  and  introducing  the  nega- 
tive into  the  major  term,  as,  All  artists  are  men  who 
are  not  indifferent  to  criticism.  With  either  of  these 
affirmative,  universal  propositions  for  a  major  premise 
a  normal  syllogism  may  easily  be  constructed  :  — 

All  artists  are  sensitive  to  criticism. 
Mr.  Black  is  an  artist. 
Mr.  Black  is  sensitive  to  criticism ; 
or, 

All  artists  are  men  who  are  not  indifferent  to  criticism. 

Mr.  Black  is  an  artist. 

Mr.  Black  is  a  man  who  is  not  indifferent  to  criticism. 


DECIDING   ON   THE   PROPOSITION  35 

In  an  enthymeme  the  universal  proposition  is  often 
disguised  so  that  it  is  a  little  hard  to  recognize  it. 
The  statement,  If  Mr.  Adams  said  it,  it  must  be  true, 
is  easily  expanded  into  a  regular  syllogism  :  — 

All  that  Mr.  Adams  says  is  true. 

This  is  something  that  Mr.  Adams  said. 

This  is  true. 

Or,  the  statement  that  Mr.  Davis  is  lucky,  for  a  man 
must  be  either  very  clever  or  very  lucky  to  play  the 
game  so  successfully,  implies  the  folio  wing -syllogism  : 

All  men  who  play  the  game  so  successfully  and  are  not 
clever  are  lucky. 

Mr.  Davis  is  a  man  who  plays  the  game  successfully  and 
is  not  clever. 

Mr.  Davis  is  lucky. 

In  syllogistic  reasoning  the  premises  must  be  true 
and  the  relation  between  them  right  or  the  conclusion 
is  unreliable. 

The  proposition  you  decide  upon  for  an  argument 
should  be  a  conclusion  that  rests  on  a  granted  major 
proposition  and  a  provable  minor  proposition. 

EXERCISES 

i.  Come  to  class  prepared  to  take  part  in  an  informal, 
general  debate  on  the  question  :  Should  students  be  required 
to  support  in  debate  the  side  that  they  do  not  believe  to  be 
right?1 

1  The  most  excellent  drill  in  argument  is  afforded  by  general  in- 
formal class-room  discussions  of  questions  upon  which  all  are  fitted, 


36  FINDING  THE   PROPOSITION 

2.  What  was  the  fault  in  the  reasoning  of  the  peas  in  the 
fairy  tale,  that  looked  about  them  and  concluded  the  world 
was  green? 

3.  Read  the  following  fable ;  express  in  the  form  of  a 
syllogism  the  donkey's  reasoning,  and  tell  why  his  conclusion 
was  wrong. 

A  donkey  laden  with  salt  in  crossing  a  stream  stumbled 
and  fell  into  the  water.  Before  he  regained  his  feet  most  of 
the  salt  had  dissolved  and  his  burden  was  much  lighter.  The 
next  time  he  traveled  that  way  he  was  carrying  a  load  of 
sponge.  Remembering  his  former  experience  he  pur- 
posely fell  and  let  his  burden  lie  for  some  minutes  in  the 
water. 

4.  During   the   debate   on   the  Mills  Bill,  a  prominent 
Republican  member  of  Congress  replied  to  a  speech  made 
by   Mr.    Morse  of  Boston  against  the  high  tariff  on  wool 
and  the  consequent  high  price  of  clothing,  by  saying  in  sub- 
stance :  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  man  who  gets  a  dollar  a 
day  for  his  wages,  and  having  worked  ten  days  goes  to  buy 
his  suit  of  clothes.     He  expects  to  buy  the  suit  for  ten  dol- 

without  special  preparation,  to  express  an  opinion,  and  upon  which 
there  will  naturally  be  some  diversity  of  opinion.  It  is  in  such  debates 
as  these  in  real  life,  in  the  home,  in  the  faculty  meeting,  in  the  com- 
mittee room,  the  directors'  meeting,  that  vital  debate  is  done  rather 
than  in  prepared  speeches.  While  it  is  advisable  for  every  student  to 
come  to  class  with  a  definite  point  to  be  proved  and  the  evidence  with 
which  to  prove  it  in  mind,  spontaneity  should  be  cultivated.  The 
quick  and  timely  support  or  overthrow  of  a  classmate's  argument  should 
be  a  student's  aim  quite  as  much  as  the  offering  of  independent  argu- 
ments. The  prearranged  speech  has  little  value  in  training  boys  and 
girls  to  speak  in  comparison  with  the  speech  suggested  by  the  remarks 
of  another  and  made  with  reference  to  what  has  been  said  on  the  sub- 
ject during  the  discussion. 


DECIDING  ON   THE   PROPOSITION  37 

lars.  But  the  robber  manufacturers  have  been  to  Congress 
and  have  got  one  hundred  per  cent  put  upon  the  goods  in  the 
shape  of  a  tariff,  and  he  must  pay  twenty  dollars.  So  he 
must  go  back  to  ten  days  more  of  sweat,  ten  days  more  of 
toil,  to  earn  the  ten  dollars  needed  to  pay  for  the  clothes. 
Here,  said  the  congressman  [unwrapping  a  parcel  and 
holding  up  a  suit  of  clothes],  is  the  entire  suit,  tariff  and  all, 
for  just  ten  dollars. 

Tell  what  syllogism  is  implied  by  the  enthymeme : 
This  suit  of  clothes  disproves  the  theory  that  the  tariff  on 
wool  causes  a  man  to  pay  $20  for  a  $10  suit  of  clothes,  for 
this  suit,  tariff  and  all,  cost  $10.  Which  premise  has  been 
proved  ?  Why,  then,  is  the  argument  not  convincing  ? 

5.  Tell  what  is  wrong  in  the  reasoning  of  the  blind  men 
in  the  following  :  — 

"The  First  approached  the  Elephant, 

And  happening  to  fall 
Against  his  broad  and  sturdy  side, 

At  once  began  to  bawl : 
'  God  bless  me  !  —  but  the  Elephant 

Is  very  like  a  wall.' 

"  The  Second,  feeling  of  the  tusk, 

Cried,  '  Ho  !  what  have  we  here 
So  very  round  and  smooth  and  sharp? 

To  me  'tis  mighty  clear 
This  wonder  of  an  Elephant 

Is  very  like  a  spear  ! ' 

"  The  Third  approached  the  animal, 

And,  happening  to  take 
The  squirming  trunk  within  his  hands, 


38  FINDING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Thus  boldly  up  and  spake  :  — 
'  1  see,'  quoth  he,  '  the  Elephant 
Is  very  like  a  snake  : ' 

"The  Fourth  reached  out  his  eager  hand, 

And  felt  about  the  knee ; 
'  What  most  this  wondrous  beast  is  like 

Is  mighty  plain,'  quoth  he  ; 
'  Tis  clear  enough  the  Elephant 
Is  very  like  a  tree  ! ' 

"  The  Fifth,  who  chanced  to  touch  the  ear, 

Said,  '  E'en  the  blindest  man 
Can  tell  what  this  resembles  most : 

Deny  the  fact  who  can, 
This  marvel  of  an  Elephant 

Is  very  like  a  fan  ! ' 

"  The  Sixth  no  sooner  had  begun 

About  the  beast  to  grope, 
Than  seizing  on  the  swinging  tail 

That  fell  within  his  scope, 
'  I  see,'  quoth  he,  '  the  Elephant 
Is  very  like  a  rope  ! '  " 
—  SAXE  :   The  Blind  Men  and  the  Elephant. 

6.  Read  the  following  newspaper  clipping  and  give  the 
untenable  major  premise  and  the  unprovable  minor  premise 
that  are  necessary  to  the  conclusion,  —  "  then  we  have  an 
instance  of  telepathy  between  a  dog  and  a  human  being." 

LONDON,  July  25. 

"  Much  public  attention  has  been  attracted  by  a  remark- 
able dream  story  sent  to  the  press  by  H.  Rider  Haggard. 


DECIDING   ON   THE   PROPOSITION  39 

He  says  that  on  July  10  he  suffered  a  painful  nightmare,  and 
while  still  half  conscious  dreamed  that  his  favorite  retriever 
was  dying,  that  he  himself  was  close  to  it  and  that  the  dog 
was  endeavoring  to  tell  him  the  facts.  The  body  of  the 
retriever  was  found  in  the  river  three  days  afterward,  and  an 
investigation  seems  to  prove  that  it  was  killed  on  July  10  by 
a  train  about  three  hours  before  Haggard's  dream. 

"  The  only  doubt  about  the  facts,  as  to  most  of  which 
Haggard  produces  full  corroborative  evidence,  is  as  to  the 
time,  for,  if  the  dog  was  killed  later,  the  incident  is  reduced 
to  a  dream  which  turned  out  true,  an  experience  by  no 
means  unusual.  Mr.  Haggard,  however,  has  satisfied  him- 
self as  to  the  manner  and  time  of  death  and  seems  con- 
vinced that  the  dog  did,  either  at  the  moment  of  death  or 
after  it,  succeed  in  telling  his  master  what  happened.  If 
the  communication  was  made  at  the  moment  of  death,  then 
we  have  an  instance  of  telepathy  between  a  dog  and  a 
human  being  without  precedent,  while,  if  it  was  made  after 
death,  Mr.  Haggard  suggests  that  some  non-bodily  but 
surviving  part  of  life  or  the  spirit  of  the  dog  reproduced 
those  things  in  his  mind. 

"  The  incident  has  already  induced  a  flood  of  correspond- 
ence on  the  subject." 

7.    From  the  following  terms  construct  syllogisms  :  — 

Major  term  Minor  term  Middle  term 

brave  Richard  warriors 

good  students          Fred  West  members  of  the 

football  team 
true  That  Caesar  is  what  Brutus  says 

ambitious 

interesting  Praeterita  autobiographies 

of  great  men 


40  FINDING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Major  term  Minor  term  Middle  term 

stores  that  sell         Wilson  and  Smith's        department  stores 
shoes  store 

8.  Express  in  the  form  of  universal  affirmative  proposi- 
tions :  — 

No  college  work  is  easy. 
None  but  the  brave  deserve  the  fair. 
Only  just  acts  are  kind. 
He  jests  at  scars  who  never  felt  a  wound. 
A  man  must  be  stupid  or  unkind  who  habitually  hurts  the 
feelings  of  others. 

9.  From    the    following    enthymemes    construct   syllo- 
gisms :  — 

This  orange  is  seedless,  for  it  is  a  navel  orange. 

The  tree  you  speak  of  is  an  apple  tree,  for  all  the  trees 
in  my  father's  orchard  are  apple  trees. 

She  must  be  a  good  student,  for  only  good  students  are 
given  scholarships. 

All  men  are  fallible,  and  the  king  is  a  man. 

10.  From  each  of  the  syllogisms  you  have  constructed 
derive  the  two  enthymemes  that  have  not  been  furnished. 


STATING  THE   PROPOSITION 

IN  clubs,  debating  societies,  courts,  legislative 
bodies,  wherever  formal  arguing  is  done,  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  reduce  the  question  in  controversy  to  a 
statement.  This  is  necessary  since  we  seek  by  argu- 
ment to  prove  the  truth.  As  a  word  or  phrase  asserts 
nothing,  it  can  not  be  true  or  false  ;  the  idea  to  be 
proved  must  therefore  be  expressed  as  a  proposition. 

Ordinarily  a  proposition  to  be  debated  is  en- 
grossed in  a  resolution,  as  :  Resolved,  That  immigra- 
tion should  be  further  restricted.  This  statement  may 
serve  for  an  argument  intended  to  prove  either  side 
of  the  question.  The  statement  is  affirmative,  and 
the  one  arguing  for  further  restriction  of  immigration 
would  be  taking  the  affirmative  side  of  the  argument. 
One  arguing  against  further  restriction  would  be 
taking  the  negative.  Had  the  statement  been  nega- 
tive, Resolved,  That  immigration  should  not  be  fur- 
ther restricted,  the  one  who  argued  against  further 
restriction  would  have  the  affirmative,  and  the  one 
who  argued  for  the  restriction  the  negative. 

The  negative  form  of  statement  is  sometimes 
preferable.  This  is  the  case  when  your  argument 
is  to  be  in  the  nature  of  a  defense,  for  the  privilege 
41 


42  FINDING   THE   PROPOSITION 

of  opening  the  discussion  lies  with  the  affirmative. 
It  would  seem  gratuitous  to  begin  a  defense  of  a  man 
or  a  measure  that  had  not  been  assailed.  If  it  were 
your  purpose  to  justify  General  Harrison's  advance 
on  Tippecanoe,  you  should  not  state  the  resolution, 
Resolved,  That  General  Harrison's  advance  on  Tippe- 
canoe was  justified,  and  take  the  affirmative,  but 
rather  give  the  proposition  the  negative  form,  Re- 
solved, That  General  Harrison's  advance  on  Tippe- 
canoe was  not  justified,  and  take  the  negative.  This 
implies  that  General  Harrison's  action  has  been 
called  into  question  and  that  there  is  some  occasion 
for  your  championing  his  cause. 

The  student  should  remember  that  the  affirmative 
or  negative  proposition  does  not  commit  him  to  either 
side  of  the  argument.  One  can  not  tell,  by  seeing 
the  proposition  alone,  which  side  of  the  argument  a 
writer  or  speaker  intends  to  take.  If  a  student  in- 
tends to  argue  against  a  measure,  the  nature  of  the 
argument  he  intends  to  make  will  determine  whether 
the  proposition  should  be  affirmative  or  negative.  If 
his  argument  is  to  be  positive  in  character,  if  he  is 
going  to  advance  reasons  why  immigration  should 
not  be  further  restricted,  the  proposition  should  be 
negative  in  form  ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  his  argument 
is  to  be  negative  in  character,  devoted  to  showing 
that  the  reasons  advanced  for  the  restriction  are  not 
adequate  or  sound,  he  does  not  dare  to  assume  the 


STATING   THE   PROPOSITION  43 

burden  of  proof  that  falls  on  the  affirmative,  but  must 
give  the  proposition  the  affirmative  form  and  take 
the  negative.  It  is  a  simpler  matter  to  argue  the 
negative  of  the  proposition,  immigration  should  be 
further  restricted,  than  to  take  the  affirmative  of 
immigration  should  not  be  further  restricted.  Though 
both  necessitate  opposition  to  further  restriction,  the 
first  task  ends  with  proving  further  restriction  not 
desirable,  the  second  is  completed  only  when  further 
restriction  has  been  proved  actually  undesirable. 

Carelessness  in  phrasing  the  proposition  is  sure 
to  lead  one  into  difficulty  in  one  way  or  another. 
Great  care  must  be  taken  to  make  the  proposition 
commensurate  with  the  argument.  That  is,  the  state- 
ment should  cover  the  entire  argument  and  no  more  ; 
it  should  include  the  ultimate  point  to  be  argued  and 
yet  claim  nothing  that  one  does  not  intend  to  attempt 
to  prove. 

The  student  who  stated  his  question  thus,  Resolved, 
That  the  United  States  government  should  build  the 
Nicaragua  Canal,  when  he  wished  not  to  argue  that 
the  undertaking  should  be  assumed  by  the  United 
States  or  that  the  Nicaragua  route  was  preferable  to 
the  Panama,  but  simply  that  a  transisthmian  canal 
would  be  a  great  benefit  to  the  world,  signified  too 
much  in  his  proposition.  His  statement  would  de- 
mand for  its  proof  the  heaviest  work  on  the  points 
the  student  intended  to  ignore. 


44  FINDING  THE   PROPOSITION 

On  the  other  hand,  exactness  demands  that  the 
proposition  definitely  express  the  limits  of  the  ques- 
tion to  be  argued.  The  proposition,  The  college 
course  should  be  shortened  to  three  years,  is,  for 
example,  too  vague.  The  statement  leaves  one  at 
sea  as  to  whether  the  argument  is  intended  to  prove 
that  the  work  now  done  in  four  years  could  be  done 
in  three ;  or  that  too  much  is  attempted  by  the  col- 
leges, that  their  standards  are  too  high,  and  that  one 
year's  work  should  be  eliminated  from  the  course ; 
or  that  the  entrance  standards  are  too  low ;  that  the 
first  year  of  college  work  properly  belongs  in  the 
preparatory  schools.  It  is  evident  that  the  state- 
ment of  the  proposition  does  not  make  clear  the 
ultimate  issue. 

Carelessness  as  to  the  content  of  a  proposition 
frequently  results  in  a  student's  setting  himself  an 
absurdly  easy  or  an  absurdly  difficult  task.  Prove 
any  benefit,  and  you  have  proved  that,  The  Salvation 
Army  has  done  some  good  ;  you  could  scarcely  prove 
that,  No  other  organization  could  have  accomplished 
so  .much  good  as  the  Salvation  Army  has  accom- 
plished. 

Emphasis  as  well  as  content  must  be  kept  in  mind 
in  stating  the  proposition.  A  student  whose  main 
purpose  was  to  prove  that  Mars  must  be  inhabited  by 
thinking  creatures  expressed  his  proposition  thus, 
Resolved,  That  Mars  is  inhabited  by  beings  superior 


STATING   THE   PROPOSITION  45 

to  human  beings.  As  no  word  that  is  without  signifi- 
cance is  supposed  to  be  admitted  to  the  proposition, 
this  statement  placing  the  emphasis  on  the  relative 
worth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  two  planets  was  mis- 
leading. 

Further,  the  proposition  must  be  clear.  There 
must  be  no  uncertainty  as  to  its  meaning  or  the 
meaning  of  its  terms.  Words  should  be  used  in  their 
accepted  sense.  A  girl  who  wishes  to  argue  that 
geometry  should  not  be  required  in  the  secondary 
schools  should  not  be  satisfied  with  the  phrasing, 
Students  should  not  be  required  to  study  mathematics. 
The  word  "  students  "  evidently  needs  modification. 
Students  in  the  elementary  schools,  students  in  ad- 
vanced technical  and  scientific  schools,  she  would  not 
intend  to  include  in  her  argument,  but  so  loose  a 
statement  of  the  question  necessitates  their  consider- 
ation. It  is  equally  important  that  the  relationship 
between  terms  should  be  clear.  Consider  the  propo- 
sition:  Emerson  is  the  most  typical  New  England 
writer.  Does  the  student  who  presents  this  propo- 
sition wish  to  contend  that  Emerson  is  less  eccentric 
and  has  more  traits  in  common  with  all  New  England 
writers  than  has  any  other  one  New  England  writer, 
or  does  he  mean  to  show  that  Emerson  more  than 
any  other  New  England  writer  expresses  the  spirit 
and  genius  of  New  England? 

The  wording  of  the  question  should  be  so  impartial 


46  FINDING   THE  PROPOSITION 

and  unprejudiced  that  it  could  serve  as  a  basis  for  a 
negative  or  affirmative  argument.  The  student  who 
submitted  the  proposition,  Resolved,  That  the  im- 
pregnable fortifications  at  Port  Arthur  can  not  be 
taken  by  the  Japanese,  violated  this  canon.  If  we 
admit  that  the  fortifications  are  impregnable,  what  is 
the  use  of  arguing  that  they  can  or  can  not  be  taken  ? 
The  word  "impregnable"  foredooms  the  argument 
to  a  single  outcome. 

Care  should  be  taken  to  phrase  the  proposition  in 
such  a  way  as  to  insure  unity  of  argument  if  possible. 
A  compound  proposition  necessitates  two  nearly  inde- 
pendent arguments.  Domestic  service  is  more  bene- 
ficial than  factory  work,  and  Mary  Blank  should 
accept  a  position  to  do  Mrs.  Ball's  housework  rather 
than  a  position  in  a  cotton  factory,  is  a  compound 
proposition  and  implies  two  virtually  independent 
arguments,  one  on  the  general  question,  one  on  the 
specific  question.  As  the  purpose  of  the  argument 
is  to  show  what  is  best  for  Mary  Blank,  it  is  better 
not  to  consider  the  phases  of  the  general  question 
that  do  not  pertain  to  her  case,  and  to  make  the 
proposition  entirely  specific :  Mary  Blank  should 
accept  a  position  at  Mrs.  Ball's  home,  for  general 
housework,  rather  than  a  situation  in  the  village  fac- 
tory. The  simple  assertion  permits  a  less  divided 
structure  than  that  suggested  by  the  compound 
proposition. 


STATING   THE   PROPOSITION  47 

EXERCISES 

1.  If  you  intended  to  prove  that  Thackeray  was  not  a 
cynic,  should  you  state  the  question  in  a  negative  or  an 
affirmative  proposition,  and  why  ? 

2.  Criticise  the  following  assertions  as  propositions  for 
argument :  — 

a.  Professor  Wagner's   method   of  teaching  German  is 
defensible. 

b.  The  carrying  of   freight   by  rural  electric  cars  is  an 
industrial  benefit,  and  a  charter  to  carry  freight  ought  to  be 
granted   to   the  company  controlling   the  electric   lines  in 
Morgan  County. 

c.  Slavish  obedience  to  rules  is  not  conducive  to  inde- 
pendence of  character. 

d.  Travel  will  benefit  a  boy  more  than  college. 

e.  The  best  way  to  uplift  the  Indian  is  to  educate  him. 
/.   Sensational  newspaper  articles  do  injury  both  to  those 

about  whom  they  are  written  and  to  those  who  read  them, 
and  they  should  be  suppressed  by  law. 

3.  Comment  on  the  difficulty  of  proving  the  following 
propositions,  giving  reasons   for  your  judgment.      Which 
proposition  would,  in  your  estimation,  make  the  most  satis- 
factory subject  for  an  argument?     Why? 

a.  American  writers  have   been   influenced   by  English 
writers. 

b.  All  the  works  of  American  authors  show  the  influence 
of  some  English  author. 

c.  Washington  Irving's  works  show  the  influence  of  cer- 
tain English  writers. 

d.  The  influence  of  the  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers  on 


48  FINDING  THE  PROPOSITION 

Washington  Irving's  Bracebridge  Hall  is  a  good  example  of 
the  influence  of  English  writers  on  the  early  writers  of  the 
United  States. 

e.   Washington  Irving's  Bracebridge  Hall  shows  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers. 

4.  What  are  the  requirements  of  a  good  proposition  for 
argument? 

5.  Bring  to  class  a  proposition  on  which  you  think  you 
could  write  an  argument  of  twenty  pages. 


PROVING   THE    PROPOSITION 


ARGUM  ENTATION  —  4  49 


ORGANIZATION    OF   MATERIAL  —  THE 
BRIEF 

THE    IMPORTANCE   OF   THE   BRIEF 

HAVING  decided  upon  his  proposition,  the  student's 
task  is  to  prove  it.  If  he  has  taken  a  familiar  subject, 
his  problem  is  to  select  and  arrange  the  evidence  at 
his  command  in  the  way  best  suited  to  prove  his  prop- 
osition. Whether  he  contemplates  giving  a  written 
or  an  oral  argument,  a  brief  is  indispensable  at  this 
stage  of  the  work. 

A  brief  is  an  outline  or  skeleton  of  an  argument. 
It  must  be  comprehensive  enough  to  include  the  gen- 
eral plan  of  the  argument.  By  the  experienced 
brief-drawer  the  details  of  the  plan  may  be  presented 
with  more  or  less  elaborateness,  but,  because  of  the 
great  value  the  brief  has  in  training  the  student  to 
organize  his  ideas,  the  brief  of  the  beginner  should  be 
a  full  one. 

Lincoln  doubtless  found  the  following  brief  ade- 
quate in  a  suit  against  an  agent  who  had  retained 
$200  out  of  $400  of  pension  money  due  the  widow 
of  a  Revolutionary  soldier:  — 

"  No  contract.  —  Not  professional  services.  —  Unreason- 
able charge.  —  Money  retained  by  Deft  not  given  to  Pl'ff. 
5' 


52  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

—  Revolutionary  War.  —  Describe  Valley  Forge  privations. 

—  Pl'ff 's    husband.  —  Soldier   leaving    home   for    army.  — 
Skin  Deft. — Close."  —  BAKER:  Principles  of  Argumenta- 
tion. 

This  brief,  while  sufficiently  comprehensive,  is  too 
little  elaborated  to  be  helpful  to  an  inexperienced 
writer.  The  following  brief  is  a  specimen  of  the  kind 
of  brief  most  helpful  to  the  student :  — 

Question :  Resolved,  That  the  termite  or  white 
ant  is  an  important  agricultural  agency  in  tropical 
Africa. 

BRIEF  FOR  THE  AFFIRMATIVE 
INTRODUCTION 

I.  The  extensive  earth  works  of  the  termite,  or  white 
ant,  suggest  the  question,  May  not  this  insect  have 
an  important  agricultural  function  in  tropical  Africa  ? 

II.  It  is   granted  that  earth  loses  its  productive 
power   unless  the   layers  of    soil   are  in   some  way 
mixed  so  that  the  subsoil  is  brought  to  the  surface. 

III.  It  is  granted  that  any  agency  that  is  necessary 
to  and  largely  instrumental  in  the  bringing  of  the 
subsoil  to  the  surface  is  an  important  agricultural 
influence. 

IV.  The  question  then  is,  Is  the  termite  necessary 
to  the  bringing  up  of  the  subsoil  in  tropical  Africa, 
and  is  it  largely  instrumental  in  the  process  ? 


IMPORTANCE  OF   THE   BRIEF  53 

PROOF 

The  termite,  or  white  ant,  is  an  important  agricul- 
tural agency  in  tropical  Africa,  for 

I.  It  is  necessary  to  the  transference  of  the  layers 
of  soil,  for 

A.  Other  agencies  are  wanting,  for 

i .    There  are  no  frosts  to  disintegrate  the  soil. 

B.  The  work  can  not  be  done  by  the  earth- 

worm, for 

1.  Although   the  earthworm  is  a  "natural 

skewer," 

I1.    Yet,  it  can  not  penetrate  the  sun-baked 
soil  of  the  tropics  in  the  dry  season. 

2.  Worms  of  all  sorts  are  rare  in  the  tropics 

even  in  wet  weather,  for 
a.    Henry  Drummond  reports  in  Tropical 
Africa,  page  1 30,  that  he  never  saw 
a  single  worm  in  Central  Africa. 

II.  It  is  instrumental  in  bringing  the  subsoil  to  the 
surface,  for 

A.    Its  habits  of  life  demand  it,  for 

I.    Its  mode  of  building  its  house  demands 
it,  for 

a.  It  builds  subterranean  houses. 

b.  It  must  bring  up  the  excavated  earth. 

c.  It  builds  mounds. 

d.  It  must  bring  the  material  for  them 

from  under  the  earth,  for 


54  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

(i)T  The  termite  never  appears  above 

ground,  for 
(a)   It  is  blind. 
(£)   It  has  many  enemies. 
2.    Its  mode  of  procuring  its  food  demands 

it,  for 

a.  It  builds  long  earthen  tunnels  while 
in  quest  of  food,  for 

(1)  Its  quest  often  leads  it  from  the 

ground  to  the  tree  tops,  for 
(a)   Its  food  is  dead  wood. 

(2)  It    never    comes    above   ground 

without  shelter. 

B.   The  soil  thus  brought  up  is  spread  over  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  for 

1.  The    tunnels  and   mounds    are  in  time 

disintegrated  by  the  tropical  winds  and 
rains. 

2.  The  streams  help  to  distribute  and  de- 

posit their  dust. 

III.    It  is  largely  instrumental  in  bringing  up  the 
subsoil,  for 

A.    It  brings  up  great  quantities  of  earth,  for 
i.    Its  mounds  are  large,  for 

a.  The  mounds  of  the  white  ant  are 
often  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  diam- 
eter and  from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  in 
height. 


IMPORTANCE   OF   THE   BRIEF  55 

b.  "  The  brick   houses  of  the  mission- 

aries near  Lake  Nyassa  have  all 
been  built  from  a  single  ants'  nest, 
and  the  quarry  from  which  the  ma- 
terial has  been  derived  forms  a  pit 
beside  the  settlement  some  dozen 
feet  in  depth."  —  DRUMMOND. 

c.  The  ant-hills  protect  the  hunters. 

2.  Its  mounds  are  numerous,  for 

a.  "  They  look  like  cemeteries  from  a 

distance." 

b.  "  The  smaller  hills  occur  in  myriads 

along  the  shores  of  Lake  Tan- 
ganyika." 

3.  Its  mounds  extend  over  a  large  territory, 

for 

a.   They  are    said  to  abound  over  the 
whole  interior  of  Africa. 

4.  Its  tunnels  often  nearly  cover  the  trunks 

and  branches  of  trees. 

5.  There  are  whole  forests  of  trees  covered 

with  earthen  tubes. 

CONCLUSION 

Since,  then,  the  white  ant  in  building  its  home  and 
sheltering  tunnels  brings  to  the  surface  an  enormous 
amount  of  subsoil  that  would  be  brought  up  in  no 
other  way,  and  deposits  it  in  such  shape  that  it  is 


56  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

eventually  distributed  by  wind  and  rain  and  streams 
over  the  surface  of  a  large  part  of  Central  Africa,  it 
may  be  said  to  be  an  important  agricultural  agency 
in  that  region.1 

The  untrained  thinker  finds  it  more  difficult  to 
make  a  brief  or  outline  and  use  it  than  to  write 
a  paper  without  one.  You  remember  that  before 
David  went  out  against  Goliath  he  tried  on  the  armor 
of  Saul,  but  found  that  it  cumbered  him,  and  so  went 
forth  to  slay  the  giant  in  his  own  way  with  his  shep- 
herd's sling.  To  the  beginner  the  brief  is  as  Saul's 
armor  was  to  the  boy  David,  a  hindrance ;  he  can  do 
a  better  piece  of  work  without  it.  But  his  object  is 
not  to  do  a  specific  piece  of  work  well ;  it  is  to  gain 
power  to  do  future  work  well;  and  just  as  David  had 
to  learn  to  wear  the  armor  of  Saul  and  exchange  the 
shepherd's  method  for  the  warrior's  in  order  to  lead 
the  hosts  of  Israel  to  repeated  victories,  so  the  student 
must  learn  to  make  the  scholar's  method  help  rather 
than  hinder  him,  if  he  is  to  do  strong,  effective  work 
in  the  future. 

By  practice  in  brief-drawing  one  gains  the  power 
to  plan  work  with  certainty  and  facility ;  one  comes 
to  see  ideas  in  their  various  possible  relations  and 
quickly  to  adjust  them  rightly  and  effectively.  Re- 
adjustment is  easily  possible  in  the  brief.  To  change 

1  The  material  for  this  brief  is  taken  from  Henry  Drummond's 
Tropical  Africa,  Chapter  VI. 


IMPORTANCE   OF   THE   BRIEF  57 

the  amplified,  completed  work  without  evidence  of 
patching  is  difficult.  The  student  who  writes  without 
a  brief  frequently  presents  work  in  which  he  himself 
perceives  flaws  in  the  organization  of  material,  be- 
cause the  labor  of  alteration  requires  more  time  than 
he  can  give  it.  Whereas,  had  he  by  means  of  a  brief 
carefully  projected  his  work,  he  would  have  dis- 
covered the  difficulty  in  time  to  remedy  it  with  little 
effort  or  time. 

When  he  has  the  unamplified,  bare  framework 
before  him,  the  student  can  better  judge  of  the  actual 
strength  of  his  argument  than  he  can  when  the  idea 
is  garnished  with  fair  words  and  persuasively  pre- 
sented in  the  finished  work.  He  sees  more  justly 
where  the  evidence  by  which  he  would  establish  the 
truth  of  a  proposition  is  strong  and  where  it  is  weak. 

THE    INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF 

MATERIAL  AND  IMMATERIAL  ISSUES 
In  argument  we  take  for  granted  an  audience.  It 
is  best  to  assume  a  hearer  or  reader  who  holds  views 
opposed  to  those  we  advocate,  as,  if  we  work  with  the 
possibility  of  hostile  criticism  in  mind,  we  shall  be 
more  careful  to  build  up  an  irrefragable  argument 
than  if  we  work  believing  that  whatever  we  say  will 
find  easy  acceptance.  Some  initial  agreements  are 
necessary  before  there  can  be  any  intelligent  dis- 
agreement. Opponents  must  agree  on  the  interpre- 


58  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

tation  of  the  question  —  they  must  agree  as  to  what 
point  or  points  must  be  proved  in  order  to  prove  the 
truth  or  the  falsity  of  a  proposition.  This  it  is  the 
business  of  the  introduction  to  discover. 

Usually  there  are  within  the  general  issue  under 
discussion  many  particular  or  special  issues.  It  is 
necessary  to  find  out  whether  or  no  there  are  among 
these  particular  issues  any  that  do  not  need  argu- 
ment, that  both  sides  will  admit  as  true.  Any  such 
are.  immaterial  to  the  discussion.  It  is  the  chief 
function  of  the  introduction  to  eliminate  from  the 
discussion  immaterial  issues  and  to  discover  the  ma- 
terial issues.  , 

Just  what  the  material  issues  in  a  controversy  are 
will  depend  upon  circumstances.  Let  us  take  a  very 
simple  example :  The  proposition  is,  Miss  Blank 
should  have  a  coat  made  in  x  style.  This  may  be 
resolved  into  two  particular  or  special  issues,  Should 
Miss  Blank  have  a  new  coat,  and,  if  so,  should  it  be 
made  in  x  style  ?  Before  we  begin  to  argue  we 
should  know  whether  or  not  there  is  any  disagree- 
ment as  to  the  first  of  these  particular  issues.  If 
both  sides  agree  that  she  should  have  a  new  coat,  it 
would  obviously  be  a  waste  of  time  to  argue  that  she 
should.  That  particular  issue  should  be  eliminated 
from  the  discussion,  and  the  argument  should  be 
directed  to  the  establishment  or  the  overthrow  of  the 
second  issue,  The  coat  should  be  made  in  x  style. 


INTRODUCTION  TO   THE   BRIEF  59 

That  in  turn  may  be  resolved  into  particular  issues ; 
as,  Will  a  garment  made  in  x  style  be  aesthetically 
satisfactory  ?  Will  it  be  economically  satisfactory  ? 
It  is  possible  that  both  of  these  issues  may  call  for 
debate.  It  is  possible  that  either  one  may  be  elimi- 
nated as  immaterial.  Both  sides  might  agree  that  x 
style  was  altogether  satisfactory  in  so  far  as  produc- 
ing a  pleasing  appearance  was  concerned ;  or  both 
sides  might  agree  that  the  question  of  economy  was 
not  for  Miss  Blank  a  serious  consideration.  If  the 
first  issue  were  discarded,  the  only  issue  to  be  con- 
sidered would  be,  Would  a  coat  made  in  x  style  be 
economical  for  Miss  Blank  ?  if  the  second  were  re- 
jected as  immaterial,  the  remaining  special  issue 
would  be,  Would  a  coat  made  in  x  style  be  aestheti- 
cally satisfactory  ?  On  further  analysis  of  either  of 
these  issues  further  agreement  might  be  discovered. 
The  question  having  been  narrowed  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  aesthetic  effect,  that  issue  might  disclose 
the  two  special  issues,  Would  the  garment  in  itself  be 
beautiful,  and  would  it  be  suitable  for  Miss  Blank  ? 
and  both  might  agree  that  the  style  in  itself  was 
good ;  that  agreement  would  leave  as  the  single  ma- 
terial issue  for  discussion  the  question  whether  or  not 
the  style  would  be  becoming  to  Miss  Blank. 

Again,  let  us  suppose  that  Dr.  A  brings  the  charge 
that  Mr.  B  owes  him  $50  for  professional  services. 
Mr.  B  may  deny  the  charge,  admitting  that  he  did 


60  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

not  pay  the  money,  but  maintaining  that  the  service 
was  not  rendered.  The  point  of  difference  then  is, 
Was  the  service  rendered  ?  Or  Mr.  B  may  admit  that 
the  service  was  rendered  and  deny  that  the  money 
was  not  paid,  offering  as  evidence  a  canceled  bank 
check  for  that  amount  paid  to  Dr.  A  on  the  date  in 
question.  The  point  in  disagreement  then  becomes, 
Was  the  check  in  payment  for  this  particular  service  ? 
Mr.  B  may  admit  the  service,  and  admit  that  he  has 
not  paid  the  bill,  but  claim  that  there  was  a  previous 
contract  that  there  was  to  be  no  payment  in  case  the 
operation  was  not  successful.  The  material  issues, 
then,  are,  Was  there  such  a  contract,  and,  if  so,  was 
the  operation  successful  ? 

We  are  not  ready  for  argument  until  the  question 
has  been  analyzed  to  such  an  extent  that  we  have 
reached  the  point  of  difference,  that  is,  until  all 
immaterial  issues  have  been  cast  aside  and  the 
particular  issue  or  issues  upon  which  the  difference 
of  opinion  rests,  discovered. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  many  issues  that  are 
ruled  out  as  immaterial  to  the  discussion  are  immate- 
rial only  because  both  sides  agree  upon  them.  This 
makes  it  important  that  one  should  not  assume  as 
immaterial  issues,  issues  that  would  not  be  conceded 
as  immaterial  by  one's  opponents.  The  most  elaborate 
argument  that  x  style  will  be  becoming  to  Miss  Blank 
will  count  for  nothing  if  your  opponent  attacks  the 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  6l 

fundamental  proposition,  Miss  Blank  should  have  a 
new  coat,  and  shows  that  she  should  not  have  one 
made  in  x  style  or  any  style.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
unwise  to  waste  time  and  strength  in  proving  what 
your  opponent  will  grant.  Your  strength  must  be 
centered  on  the  material  issues. 

One  who  had  served  with  Washington  in  the  legis- 
lature of  Virginia  and  with  Franklin  in  Congress 
said :  "  I  never  heard  either  of  them  speak  ten  min- 
utes at  a  time  nor  to  any  point  but  the  main  point, 
which  was  to  decide  the  question.  They  laid  their 
shoulder  to  the  great  points,  knowing  that  the  little 
ones  would  follow  of  themselves." 

It  was  Lincoln's  habit  in  court  to  begin  by  "  giving 
away  his  case,"  as  it  seemed  to  an  unseasoned  op- 
ponent, who  with  delight  heard  the  older  lawyer 
grant  to  him  one  point  after  another  until  they  came 
to  the  material  issues  on  which  the  question  hinged. 
There  Lincoln  focused  his  strength.  A  case  of  this 
sort,  now  famous,  was  his  defense  of  the  son  of  a 
woman  who  had  befriended  him,  against  a  charge 
of  murder.  He  conceded  to  the  opposing  lawyers 
many  points  that  seemed  to  the  spectators  hope- 
lessly to  damage  his  client's  case ;  but  the  time  when 
the  murder  was  claimed  to  have  been  committed  and 
in  which  it  must  have  been  committed  if  committed 
by  his  client,  the  place  where  the  deed  was  done, 
and  the  position  of  the  alleged  eyewitness  were  points 


62  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

that  he  emphasized.  Further,  he  emphasized  the 
witness's  claim  that  the  moon  was  shining  brightly 
and  the  fact  that  without  moonlight  he  could  not 
have  seen  the  act  The  lawyer  then  took  from  his 
pocket  an  almanac  and  showed  the  judge  and  the 
jury  that  the  moon  was  not  shining  at  the  time  agreed 
upon  for  the  murder. 

One  of  the  most  disconcerting  things  that  can  hap- 
pen to  a  debating  team  is  to  come  before  an  audience 
prepared  to  make  a  strong  argument  for  a  particular 
issue,  and  find  their  opponents  ready  to  grant  them 
that  issue  and  show  that  the  question  turns  on  an- 
other issue. 

The  success  of  the  argument  must  depend  largely 
upon  the  success  of  the  introduction,  upon  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  acceptable  basis  of  agreement  as  to 
just  what  must  be  proved  to  prove  the  proposition  in 
question. 

EXERCISES 

i.  In  the  following  introductions  to  briefs  what  issues 
are  eliminated  from  discussion  as  immaterial  ?  What  issues 
are  recognized  as  material  issues  ? 

a.  Resolved,  That  prisons  should  be  made  places  for  the 
reform  instead  of  the  punishment  of  criminals. 

I.   It  is  agreed,  that 

A.  The  entire  penal  system  exists  for  the  protection  of 
society. 

B.  The  state's  duty  to  its  law-abiding  citizens  is  to  be 
considered  before  its  duty  to  lawbreakers. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE  BRIEF  63 

II.  The  question  then  becomes,  Can  the  state  benefit  the 
criminal  without  injury  to  society  ? 

b.  Resolved,  That  the  continuance  of  the  George  Junior 
Republic  is  justifiable. 

1.  All  agree,  that 

A.  The  continuance  of  an  institution  may  be  justified  by 
its  aim,  its  methods,  its  results. 

B.  The  aim  of  the  George  Junior  Republic  is  good. 

C.  The  results  are  not  yet  apparent. 

II.  The  question  then  becomes,  Are  the  methods  of  the 
George  Junior  Republic  calculated  to  accomplish  its  aims  ? 

2.  Study  the    following  resolutions  and  conditions,  and 
from  the  material  given  construct  introductions  to  briefs :  — 

a.  Resolved,  That  Mary  Jones  shall  go  to  college. 
Mary  Jones  is  the  only  daughter  of  a  widow.     Mary  is 

an  unusually  capable,  clear-headed,  energetic  girl  about 
nineteen  years  old.  She  has  graduated  from  the  village 
high  school  with  distinction  and  is  ambitious  to  have  a 
college  education  and  make  a  career  for  herself.  She  is 
not  selfish,  however,  but  is  devoted  to  her  mother,  and 
wants  to  do  what  will  make  her  happy. 

Mrs.  Jones  is  about  fifty-five  years  old.  She  has  suffi- 
cient means  to  keep  herself  and  her  daughter  comfortably. 
Mary  is  her  pride  and  joy,  and  she  thinks  she  would  be 
supremely  happy  if  Mary  would  stay  at  home  and  help  her 
to  enjoy  the  rest  of  her  life,  which  she  frequently  says  will 
not  be  long. 

What  is  the  wish  of  both  ?    What  is  the  point  of  difference  ? 

b.  Resolved,  That  it  would  be  better  for  Sally  Brown  to 
do  general  housework  in  the  home  of  Mrs.  Morris  than  to 
accept  a  situation  in  a  jewelry  factory. 


64  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Sally  Brown  is  a  sensible,  intelligent  girl ;  she  is  an 
orphan,  uneducated  and  without  means  of  support.  She 
has  a  good  deal  of  self-respect  and  a  strong  desire  for  self- 
improvement.  She  has  an  opportunity  to  work  in  a  large 
jewelry  factory,  where  some  four  hundred  young  men  and 
women  are  employed,  for  seven  dollars  a  week.  She  can  get 
a  comfortable  room  and  board  for  four  dollars  a  week.  She 
can  also  get  a  position  to  do  general  housework,  at  three 
dollars  a  week  with  good  board  and  room,  in  the  home  of  a 
college  professor  whose  wife  is  a  considerate,  cultivated 
woman  and  has  taken  an  interest  in  Sally.  The  girl  has  not 
had  special  training  for  either  situation,  but  is  confident  that 
she  could  succeed  in  either. 

c.  Resolved,  That  The  Star  and  The  Record  should  con- 
solidate. 

The  Record  is  an  old,  conservative  paper  with  good  stand- 
ing, circulation,  and  advertising  list,  and  an  able  editor. 
The  Star  is  a  new,  progressive  paper,  without  a  reputation 
for  reliability  ;  its  editorials  are  light,  its  advertising  rate  low. 
The  capital  invested  in  The  Record  is  $20,000.  The  capital 
invested  in  The  Star  is  $10,000.  For  years  The  Record  has 
paid  an  average  dividend  of  seven  per  cent  on  the  money 
invested.  The  Star  has  not  averaged  more  than  one  per 
cent.  They  are  the  only  Republican  papers  in  town.  Some 
families  take  both  papers,  others  take  The  Star  or  The 
Record.  It  has  been  proposed  that  the  companies  consoli- 
date and  publish  but  one  paper. 

(Considering  the  question  as  one  of  finance,  the  propri- 
etors of  one  paper  will  favor  the  consolidation ;  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  other  will  have  to  be  convinced  that  the 
combination  will  be  to  their  interest.  Figures  are  given 
showing  that  the  combination  must  result  in  a  profit  large 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  65 

enough  to  pay  more  than  seven  per  cent  on  the  combined 
capital  of  the  two  papers.     Give  the  issue  exactly.) 

THE  TEST  OF  A  GOOD  INTRODUCTION  TO  A  BRIEF 

As  has  been  shown,  we  may  consider  the  proposi- 
tion to  be  proved  as  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism. 
The  truth  of  the  conclusion  of  a  syllogism  depends 
on  the  truth  of  the  two  premises  that  logically  sup- 
port it.  If  they  are  both  true,  the  conclusion  must 
inevitably  be  true.  Together  the  premises  form  a 
sufficient  reason  for  the  truth  of  the  conclusion. 

Take  the  syllogism  :  — 

All  men  who  care  more  for  the  well-being  of  others  than 
for  their  own  comfort  and  pleasure  are  generous. 

Mr.  Hale  is  a  man  who  cares  more  for  the  well-being  of 
others  than  for  his  own  comfort  and  pleasure. 

Mr.  Hale  is  generous. 

How  do  we  know  that  Mr.  Hale  is  a  generous 
man  ?  What  is  the  test  of  generosity  ?  Mr.  Hale  is 
generous  because  any  one  who  cares  more  for  the 
well-being  of  others  than  for  his  own  comfort  and 
pleasure  is  generous,  and  Mr.  Hale  is  a  man  who 
cares  more  for  the  well-being  of  others  than  for  his 
own  comfort  and  pleasure.  If  the  universal  statement 
is  admitted  to  be  true,  if  caring  more  for  the  well- 
being  of  others  than  for  one's  own  comfort  and  pleas- 
ure is  the  test  of  generosity,  then,  if  Mr.  Hale  is 
proved  to  have  this  characteristic,  he  will  be  proved 
to  be  generous. 

ARGUMENTATION  —  5 


66  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

The  introduction  to  a  brief  for  an  argument  whose 
purpose  was  to  prove  the  generosity  of  Mr.  Hale 
might  be  something  like  this  :  — 

I.  Mr.   Hale's   refusal   to   contribute    toward  the 
building  of  the  new  library  raises  a  question  as  to 
his  generosity. 

II.  All  agree,  that 

A.  A  man  may  be  generous  without  giving 

money  to  every  worthy  enterprise. 

B.  All  men  who  care  more  for  the  well-being 

of  others  than  for  their  own  comfort  and 
pleasure  are  generous. 

III.  The  question  then  resolves  itself  into  this,  Is 
Mr.  Hale  a  man  who  cares  more  for  the  well-being 
of  others  than  for  his  own  comfort  and  pleasure? 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  material  issue  furnishes 
the  middle  term.  As  soon  as  we  have  reached  that 
in  the  introduction  to  a  brief  we  have  the  three  terms 
for  a  syllogism,  since  we  start  with  the  conclusion  in 
which  the  minor  and  the  major  terms  occur.  In  the 
normal  syllogism,  it  will  have  been  noticed,  the  terms 
are  arranged  as  follows :  — 

Major  premise  :  middle  term,  major  term. 

Minor  premise  :  minor  term,  middle  term. 

Conclusion  :  minor  term,  major  term. 

If  the  terms  in  the  proposition  or  conclusion  are 
not  arranged  in  the  right  order,  minor  term,  then 
major,  it  is  necessary  to  put  the  conclusion  into  logi- 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  67 

cal  form  before  we  can  work  back  from  it  to  the 
premises  and  complete  the  syllogism.  If  the  proposi- 
tion is,  The  negro  should  be  given  social  recognition 
according  to  his  individual  merit,  it  is  conceivable  that 
different  problems  might  be  suggested  by  this  prop- 
osition. From  it  the  following  syllogism  might  be 
evolved  :  — 

All  persons  who  deserve  opportunity  for  the  highest 
development  should  receive  social  recognition  according  to 
individual  merit. 

The  negro  is  a  person  who  deserves  opportunity  for 
the  highest  development. 

The  negro  should  receive  social  recognition  according 
to  his  individual  merit. 
Or, 

Whatever  is  necessary  to  the  negro's  highest  develop- 
ment is  the  negro's  due. 

Social  recognition  of  the  individual  according  to  his 
merit  is  necessary  to  the  negro's  highest  development. 

Social  recognition  of  the  individual  according  to  his 
merit  is  the  negro's  due. 

The  minor  and  major  terms  in  this  proposition  are 
rightly  arranged  for  the  conclusion  of  the  first  syllo- 
gism; their  order  must  be  changed  if  the  second 
syllogism  is  the  one  desired.  Study  of  these  syllogisms 
will  show  that,  in  each,  the  major  premise  of  the  one 
syllogism  contains  the  idea  of  the  minor  premise  of 
the  other.  If,  then,  both  premises  must  be  proved  in 
order  to  prove  the  conclusion,  it  would  be  immaterial 


68  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

which  syllogism  were  taken  to  epitomize  the  argu- 
ment. But  a  comparison  of  the  introduction  and  the 
syllogism  given  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  will 
show  that  the  major  premise  expresses  something 
agreed  upon  by  both  sides,  and  that  the  minor  prop- 
osition expresses  the  point  or  points  that  must  be 
proved  by  evidence.  If,  then,  the  first  of  the  two 
syllogisms  just  given  is  taken,  the  argument  will  be 
limited  to  proving  that  the  negro  is  a  person  deserv- 
ing opportunity  for  the  highest  development  If  the 
second  is  taken,  the  question  for  argument  is  simply, 
whether  or  not  social  recognition  of  the  negro  accord- 
ing to  individual  merit  is  essential  to  the  highest 
development  of  the  negro. 

If  the  writer  wishes  to  consider  both  questions  in 
his  argument,  he  will  reject  both  of.  these  limited 
syllogisms  and  take  a  more  comprehensive  one  :  — 

Whatever  is  essential  to  the  negro's  highest  develop- 
ment and  whatever  the  white  man  owes  the  negro,  should 
be  given  without  consideration  of  the  result  to  the  white 
man. 

Social  recognition  according  to  individual  merit  is  some- 
thing essential  to  the  negro's  highest  development  and 
something  the  white  man  owes  the  negro. 

Social  recognition  of  the  negro  according  to  individual 
merit  is  something  that  should  be  given  the  negro  without 
consideration  of  the  result  to  the  white  man. 

The  major  premise  thus  often  expresses  a  belief 
that  may  be  regarded  by  some  as  debatable,  but 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  69 

always  one  that  must  be  accepted  as  unquestionable 
by  those  arguing  from  it.  If  the  major  premise, 
which  corresponds  to  the  fundamental  agreements 
determined  upon  by  the  introduction  and  eliminated 
from  the  contention,  is  successfully  assailed,  no  mat- 
ter how  firmly  one  establishes  the  minor  premise, 
the  conclusion  is  not  proved. 

After  finishing  his  introduction  the  student  should 
formulate  his  argument  as  a  syllogism.  If  the  intro- 
duction has  discovered  the  middle  term  for  this 
syllogism,  established  the  major  premise,  and  ex- 
pressed the  minor  premise,  it  has  prepared  the  way 
for  the  argument  and  is  a  good  introduction.  It  is 
the  business  of  the  introduction  to  discover  the  mid- 
dle term  and  establish  the  major  premise.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  argument  proper  to  prove  by  evidence 
that  the  minor  premise  is  true  or  false. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Write  syllogisms  using  the  material  furnished  by  the 
introductions  to   briefs  given  in  the   first  of  the  exercises 
beginning  on  page  62. 

2.  Write  syllogisms  testing  the  introductions  you  wrote 
from  the  material  for  introductions  furnished  on  pages  63 
and  64. 

3.  Write  syllogisms  using  the  material  furnished  by  the 
following  introductions  :  — 

a    Resolved,  That  football  is  a  brutal  sport. 
I.    All  agree,  that 


70  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

A.  All  games  that  depend  for  success  on  physical 

strength  rather  than  on  skill  are  brutal. 
II.  The  question  is,  Does  success  in  football  depend  on 
physical  force  rather  than  skill? 

b.  Resolved,  That  the  present  method  of  celebrating  the 
Fourth  of  July  should  be  changed. 

I.  All  agree,  that 

A.  The   Fourth  of  July   is  celebrated  in  order  to 

foster  patriotism  and  loyalty  to  government. 

B.  The  purpose  of  government   is   to   protect  the 

personal  and  property  rights  of  the  individual. 

II.  The  question  then  becomes,  Does  the  present  method 
of  celebrating   the   Fourth  of  July  foster  respect  for   the 
protection  of    the   personal   and   property  rights    of    the 
individual? 

4.  From  the  following  propositions  find  the  middle  term 
for  a  possible  syllogism  and  write  out  an  introduction  and  a 
syllogism  suggested  by  each.     (For  suggestions  as  to  how  to 
obtain  a  universal  affirmative  major  premise  see  page  34.) 

Athletic  contests  between  schools  should  be  encouraged. 

Fraternities  should  not  be  permitted  in  x  schools. 

Mr.  N should  locate  his  glass  factory  at (student 

may  supply  name  of  place) . 

Old  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jackson  should  not  sell  their  farm  and 
move  to  the  city. 

Sam  Bright  should  not  leave  school  to  take  a  clerkship 
in  his  father's  store. 

Public  art  galleries  should  be  open  on  Sunday. 

Dr.  Mason  should  sell  his  horses  and  buy  an  automobile. 

5.  Read  carefully  the  following  introductions  to  speeches 
and  from  them  write  introductions  to  briefs :  — 


INTRODUCTION   TO  THE   BRIEF  71 

A.  "  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention  :  If 
we  could  first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tend- 
ing, we  could  better  judge  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it. 
We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initi- 
ated with  the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise  of  putting 
an  end  to  slavery  agitation.     Under  the  operation  of  that 
policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  con- 
stantly augmented.     In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a 
crisis   shall   have   been   reached   and   passed.       'A   house 
divided  against  itself  can  not  stand.'      I  believe  this  govern- 
ment can  not  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free. 
I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  —  I  do  not  expect 
the   house   to   fall — but   I  do   expect  it  will  cease   to  be 
divided.     It   will  become   all  one  thing,  or  all  the   other. 
Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;  or  its 
advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  law- 
ful in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as 
South.     Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition?  "  — 
LINCOLN  :  Springfield  Address. 

B.  "  .  .  .    In  his  speech  last  autumn  at  Columbus,  Ohio, 
as  reported  in  the  New  York  Times,  Senator  Douglas  said  :  — 

" '  Our  fathers  when  they  framed  the  government  under 
which  we  live,  understood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  even 
better,  than  we  do  now.' 

"  I  fully  indorse  this,  and  I  adopt  it  as  a  text  for  this  dis- 
course. I  shall  adopt  it  because  it  furnishes  a  precise  and 
agreed  starting  point  for  a  discussion  between  Republicans 
and  that  wing  of  the  Democracy  headed  by  Senator  Douglas. 
It  simply  leaves  the  inquiry :  What  was  the  understanding 
those  fathers  had  of  the  question  mentioned? 


72  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

"What  is  the  frame  of  government  under  which  we  live? 
The  answer  must  be,  '  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States."  That  Constitution  consists  of  the  original,  framed 
in  1787,  and  under  which  the  present  government  first  went 
into  operation,  and  twelve  subsequently  framed  amendments, 
the  first  ten  of  which  were  framed  in  1789. 

"  Who  were  our  fathers  that  framed  the  Constitution  ?  I 
suppose  the  'thirty-nine'  who  signed  the  original  instrument 
may  be  fairly  called  our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  the 
present  government.  It  is  almost  exactly  true  to  say  they 
framed  it,  and  it  is  altogether  true  to  say  they  fairly  repre- 
sented the  opinion  and  sentiment  of  the  whole  nation  at  that 
time.  Their  names  being  familiar  to  nearly  all,  and  accessible 
to  quite  all,  need  not  now  be  repeated. 

"  I  take  these  thirty-nine,  for  the  present,  as  being  '  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live.' 
What  is  the  question  which,  according  to  the  text,  those  fathers 
understood  'just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now'  ? 

"  It  is  this  :  Does  the  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal 
authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbid  our  Federal 
Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  our  Federal  Terri- 
tories ? 

"  Upon  this,  Senator  Douglas  holds  the  affirmative,  and 
Republicans  the  negative.  This  affirmation  and  denial  form 
an  issue ;  and  this  issue  —  this  question  —  is  precisely  what 
the  text  declares  our  fathers  understood  'better  than  we.' 
Let  us  now  inquire  whether  the  '  thirty-nine '  or  any  of 
them  ever  acted  upon  this  question ;  and  if  they  did,  how 
they  acted  upon  it  —  how  they  expressed  that  better  under- 
standing." —  LINCOLN  :  Address  at  Cooper  Institute. 

C.  .  .  .  "  What  I  feared  was,  not  the  opposition  of  those 
who  are  averse  to  all  reform,  but  the  disunion  of  reformers. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  73 

I  knew  that,  during  three  months,  every  reformer  had  been 
employed  in  conjecturing  what  the  plan  of  the  Government 
would  be.  I  knew  that  every  reformer  had  imagined  in  his 
own  mind  a  scheme  differing,  doubtless,  in  some  points  from 
that  which  my  noble  friend,  the  Paymaster  of  the  Forces, 
has  developed.  I  felt,  therefore,  great  apprehension  that 
one  person  would  be  dissatisfied  with  one  part  of  the  bill, 
that  another  person  would  be  dissatisfied  with  another  part, 
and  that  thus  our  whole  strength  would  be  wasted  in  internal 
dissensions.  That  apprehension  is  now  at  an  end.  I  have 
seen  with  delight  the  perfect  concord  which  prevails  among 
all  who  deserve  the  name  of  reformers  in  this  House ;  and  I 
trust  that  I  may  consider  it  as  an  omen  of  the  concord 
which  will  prevail  among  reformers  throughout  the  country. 
I  will  not,  sir,  at  present  express  any  opinion  as  to  the 
details  of  the  bill;  but,  having  during  the  last  twenty- four 
hours  given  the  most  diligent  consideration  to  its  general 
principles,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  it  a  wise, 
noble,  and  comprehensive  measure,  skillfully  framed  for  the 
healing  of  great  distempers,  for  the  securing  at  once  of  the 
public  liberties  and  of  the  public  repose,  and  for  the  recon- 
ciling and  knitting  together  of  all  the  orders  of  the  State. 

"  The  honorable  baronet  who  has  just  sat  down  has  told  us 
that  the  ministers  have  attempted  to  unite  two  inconsistent 
principles  in  one  abortive  measure.  Those  were  his  very 
words.  He  thinks,  if  I  understand  him  rightly,  that  we  ought 
either  to  leave  the  representative  system  such  as  it  is,  or  to 
make  it  perfectly  symmetrical.  I  think,  sir,  that  the  ministers 
would  have  acted  unwisely  if  they  had  taken  either  course. 
Their  principle  is  plain,  rational,  and  consistent.  It  is  this, 
to  admit  the  middle  class  to  a  large  and  direct  share  in  the 
representation,  without  any  violent  shock  to  the  institutions 


74  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

of  our  country.  ...  I  praise  the  ministers  for  not  attempt- 
ing, at  the  present  time,  to  make  the  representation  uniform. 
I  praise  them  for  not  effacing  the  old  distinction  between  the 
towns  and  the  counties,  and  for  not  assigning  members  to 
districts,  according  to  the  American  practice,  by  the  Rule 
of  Three.  The  Government  has,  in  my  opinion,  done  all 
that  was  necessary  for  the  removal  of  a  great  practical  evil 
and  no  more  than  was  necessary." — MACAULAY  :  On  the 
Reform  Bill;  House  of  Commons,  March  2,  1831. 

ADDED  REQUIREMENTS  FOR  A  GOOD  INTRODUCTION 

Very  often  the  nature  of  the  question  under  discus- 
sion makes  the  narrowing  of  the  question  to  the 
material  issues  a  somewhat  more  complicated  pro- 
ceeding than  it  has  thus  far  appeared.  Additional 
steps  are  found  to  be  helpful. 

A  clear  statement  of  the  occasion  for  the  contention 
or  the  cause  of  the  difference  of  opinion  frequently 
helps  to  an  understanding  of  just  what  the  points  at 
issue  are.  If  the  question  is,  Resolved,  That  I  should 
subscribe  for  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  instead  of 
the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  Mary  Blank  next  year,  such 
an  introductory  sentence,  as,  "  The  fact  that  the 
leaves  in  Mary  Blank's  Atlantic  are  never  cut  makes 
me  wonder  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  renew  her 
subscription  next  year,"  shows  at  once  that  the 
argument  is  not  concerned  with  the  absolute  excel- 
lence of  either  periodical,  but  with  the  suitability  of 
each  to  Mary  Blank, 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  75 

The  following  sentences  in  like  manner  indicate 
the  trend  of  the  argument  to  come :  — 

My  income  having  been  reduced  one  third  by  the  failure 
of  the  People's  Bank,  I  have  been  considering  giving  up 
my  city  home  and  taking  a  house  in  the  suburbs. 

The  devastating  forest  fires  we  have  had  recently,  again 
bring  up  the  question,  Is  reasonable  effort  made  to  enforce 
the  laws  protecting  the  forests  of  this  state? 

The  frequent  assertion  of  college  graduates  that  they 
learned  more  from  their  fellow-students  while  in  college  than 
from  their  professors  does  not  seem  to  me  so  much  to  imply 
that  they  have  learned  little  from  their  professors  as  that 
they  have  learned  much  from  their  classmates,  and  makes 
me  wonder  if  the  tutorial  system  is  so  desirable  as  the  class 
method  of  instruction. 

It  is  sometimes  the  case  that,  in  spite  of  the  utmost 
care  in  stating  the  proposition,  terms  are  used  that 
demand  explanation.  Take,  for  example,  the  ques- 
tion, Resolved,  That  the  continuance  of  The  George 
Junior  Republic  is  justifiable.  For  the  average 
audience,  the  term  The  George  Junior  Republic  would 
require  a  brief  explanation  which  should  include  for 
such  an  introduction  as  that  given  on  page  63  a 
specific  statement  of  the  aims  of  The  George  Junior 
Republic.  The  definition  of  the  term  "justifiable ".is 
directly  involved  in  the  narrowing  of  the  question  and 
ought  by  this  time  to  be  clearly  understood.  Still, 
it  may  be  well  to  add  a  word  of  warning  regarding 
a  definition  which  must  serve  as  a  middle  term  in 


76  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

the  syllogism,  must  furnish  the  criterion  by  which 
to  judge.  In  such  definitions  synonyms  must  be 
avoided.  Synonyms  do  help  to  make  clear  the  mean- 
ing of  unfamiliar  words.  But  they  do  not  help  in  the 
least  to  bring  us  nearer  to  argument.  The  student 
who  says,  "Justifiable  will  be  used  in  this  argument  to 
mean  defensible,  warrantable,"  is  no  better  off  than 
before  he  said  it.  We  are  as  much  in  need  of  a  test 
of  what  is  defensible,  warrantable  as  we  were  of  what 
was  justifiable.  If,  however,  he  says,  "  An  act  may 
be  said  to  be  jiistifiable  when  its  results  show  it  to 
have  benefited  those  affected  by  it,"  he  has  given  us 
a  gauge  by  which  to  measure  the  justifiability  of  an 
institution's  continuance. 

While  an  introduction  to  a  brief  may  with  perfect 
propriety  contain,  in  addition  to  the  statement  of  what 
issues  are  immaterial  and  what  issues  are  material 
to  the  discussion,  the  statement  of  the  origin  of  the 
question  and  an  explanation  of  terms,  care  must  be 
taken  not  to  burden  the  introduction  with  unneces- 
sary explanation.  Such  explanations  as  are  essential 
should  be  given  with  as  much  brevity  as  is  consonant 
with  clearness.  The  definition  of  perfectly  perspicuous 
terms  is  one  form  of  unnecessary  explanation.  Akin 
to  this  fault  of  giving  unneeded  definitions  is  the  one 
just  considered,  that  of  giving  definitions  that  do  not 
accomplish  anything,  the  defining  by  synonyms. 

But  the   most  serious   danger  of   overloading  the 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  77 

introduction  lies  in  the  statement  of  the  material  and 
the  immaterial  issues.  Most  students  wish  to  tell 
why  each  point  agreed  upon  is  granted,  or,  in  other 
words,  to  give  the  line  of  argument  by  which  the 
opponents  reached  the  agreement  from  which  they 
start — to  go  back  of  the  beginning.  To  do  that  is  to 
fill  the  introduction  with  antecedent  material  no  more 
relevant  to  the  argument  in  hand  than  is  the  speed  of 
the  racers  on  their  way  to  the  race  course  to  those 
who  wait  to  see  the  race  itself.  There  should  be  no 
argument  in  the  introduction.  What  is  given  there  is 
granted  by  both  sides.  It  frequently  happens  that  in 
great  speeches  there  is  just  such  argument  in  the 
introduction  as  students  have  been  warned  here  not 
to  use.  This  exists,  however,  as  a  conscious  digres- 
sion from  the  argument  in  hand,  made  because  the 
speaker  realizes  that  his  audience,  through  forgetful- 
ness  or  ignorance,  is  without  the  antecedent  material 
necessary  for  intelligent  acceptance  of  the  basis  of 
the  argument.  But  all  this  is,  for  the  person  pre- 
pared to  listen  to  the  argument,  as  dispensable  as 
would  be  a  recital  of  the  rules  of  the  game  at  a  foot- 
ball contest. 

Restrictions  of  this  sort  are  made  for  the  purpose  of 
strengthening  the  argument,  and  if  a  case  occurs  where 
the  argument  would  be  weaker  for  observing  the  rule, 
the  rule  should  be  sacrificed,  not  the  argument. 
If  the  student,  after  careful  consideration,  feels  that  a 


78  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

few  words  of  explanation  would  make  clear  an  agree- 
ment that  would  be  otherwise  questioned,  he  should, 
of  course,  give  them.  It  is  best  in  such  cases  to 
summarize  the  reasons  briefly  and  then  give  the  con- 
elusions,  as :  — 

The  inconvenience  and  delay  to  those  who  transact  busi- 
ness there  and  the  frequent  accidents,  make  it  plain  that 
something  must  be  done  to  relieve  the  congestion  on  Wash- 
ington Street. 

The  impossibility  of  diverting  traffic  from  Washington 
Street  and  the  impracticability  of  widening  the  street  con- 
vince all  that  relief  must  be  sought  by  an  overhead  or  under- 
ground railroad  system,  etc.1 

So  succinct  a  re"sum6  of  the  grounds  for  agreement 
is  not  objectionable,  if  they  are  not  perfectly  obvious, 
but  an  elaborate  presentation  of  evidence  is  out  of 
place  in  the  introduction.  If  the  issues  need  argument, 
they  are  material  issues  and  should  be  admitted  to 
the  argument  proper. 

Full  statements  rather  than  phrases  should  always 
be  given  in  the  introduction  to  the  brief  as  well  as  in 
the  brief  proper.  The  phrase  is  unsatisfactory;  it 
does  not  tell  enough.  Compare  the  following  intro- 
ductions :  — 

A 

I.   The  origin  of  the  question :  — 

A.    September  entrance  examinations. 

1  Suggested  by  Brief  V  in  Baker's  Principles  of  Argumentation. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  79 

II.    Definition  of  terms  :  — 

A.  Henry  Mason. 

B.  Mr.  Linn's  camp. 
III.    Immaterial  issues  :  — 

A.  Henry's  object. 

B.  Excellent    tutors    at    his    father's    summer 

home. 

C.  Standing  of  Mr.  Linn's  Camp. 

D.  Henry's  previous  failures  to    remove   con- 

ditions. 

E.  Previous  failures   due   to  want  of    steady 

work. 
IV.    Material  issue :  — 

A.   Place  most  conducive  to  steady  work. 

B 

I.   The  origin  of  the  question  :  — 

A.  The  fact  that  Henry  Mason  has  to  take  the 
college  entrance  examinations  in  Septem- 
ber, has  brought  up  the  question,  Would 
it  be  advisable  for  him  to  spend  his 
summer  vacation  in  Mr.  Linn's  camp 
for  boys  ? 
II.  Definition  of  terms :  — 

A.  Henry  Mason  is  already  twenty  years  of 
age;  he  lives  in  Boston  and  has  had 
good  educational  opportunities,  but  he  is 
not  inclined  to  be  studious. 


80  PROVING  THE  PROPOSITION 

B.  Mr.  Linn's  camp  for  boys  is  a  well-organized 
out-of-doors  school  in  the  White  Moun- 
tains that  has  been  established  for  the 
purpose  of  fitting  boys  to  pass  college 
entrance  examinations. 

III.  Immaterial  issues  :  — 

A.  Henry  Mason  and   his   parents  agree  that 

Henry's  summer  should  be  spent  in  the 
way  best  suited  to  insure  his  passing  the 
examinations. 

B.  Good    Harvard   tutors  can  be  had   at   Mr. 

Mason's  summer  home. 

C.  Mr.  Linn's  camp  has  been  highly  successful, 

D.  Henry  has  several  times  failed  to  pass  off 

conditions  in  secondary  school  work 
which  he  has  studied  during  the  summer 
at  his  father's  home. 

E.  These  failures  were  due  not  to  stupidity,  but 

to  want  of  steady  application  to  study. 

IV.  Material  issue  :  — 

A.  While  Mr.  Mason  holds  that  a  private 
tutor  would  be  better  for  his  son  than  a 
school  made  up  of  boys  who  probably 
care  more  for  fun  than  books,  Henry 
contends  that  the  conditions  at  the  camp 
are  more  favorable  to  steady  work  than 
those  at  his  father's  summer  cottage. 
Until  one  has  read  B,  A  seems  quite  blind  and 


INTRODUCTION    TO   THE    BRIEF  8 1 

unintelligible.     The  student's  brief   must  be   intelli- 
gible to  others  as  well  as  to   himself. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Supply  a  suitable  origin  of  the  question  for  each  of 
the  introductions  to  briefs  given  in  the  Exercises  on  pages 
62,  63,  69,  70. 

2.  Criticise  the  following  introductions  to  briefs,  and  re- 
write :  — 

a.   Resolved,  That  the  regular  school  holiday  should  be 
changed  from  Saturday  to  Monday. 
I.    Origin  of  the  question  :  — 

A.   The  pupils'  habit  of  coming  to  class  Monday  with 
unprepared    lessons    has   given   rise    to   the 
question,  Should  the  regular  school  holiday 
be  changed  from  Saturday  to  Monday? 
II.    Definition  of  terms  :  — 

A.  The  regular  school  holiday  is  the  day  in  each  week 

on  which,  in  addition  to  Sunday,  children  are 
excused  from  attending  school. 

B.  Saturday  is  the  seventh  day  in  the  week. 

C.  Monday  is  the  second  day  in  the  week. 
III.    Immaterial  issues  :  It  is  agreed,  that 

A.   If  the  change  were  made  there  would  not  be,  on 
the   day    after   the   weekly  recess,  so  many 
students  unprepared  for  class  work,  for 
i.   The  experiment  has  been  made  and  has  proved 

a  success  in  this  particular,  for 
a.    It  was  tried  in  x  and  the  work  of  the  stu- 
dents on  Tuesday  morning  was  much  better 
than  Monday  morning  work  had  been. 

ARGUMENTATION  —  6 


82  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

b.  In  y  the  work  was  said  to  be  better  pre- 
pared for  Tuesday  morning  than  for  any 
morning  in  the  week. 

f.    In  z  high  school  the  principal  reported  the 
change  was  almost  equivalent  to  a  day  added 
to  the  schedule. 
2.   It  is  natural  that  it  should  be  better,  for 

a.  Children  frequently  are  not  allowed  to  study 
on  Sunday. 

b.  Children   forget  before  Monday  what  they 
have  studied  Friday  evening  or  Saturday. 

c.  Children  are  tempted  to  put  off  the  prepa- 
ration of  a  lesson  which  they  do  not  have  to 
recite  till  the  day  after  to-morrow. 

d.  There  is  not  so  much  going  on  on  Monday 
to  divert  children  from  their  study. 

B.  The  chief  purpose  of  the  weekly  holiday  is  recrea- 
tion, for 

1.  Rest  and   pleasure  have  been   found   essential 

to  the  right  development  of  children. 

2.  Work  suffers  unless  a  child  has  sufficient  recrea- 

tion. 
IV.    Material  issue  :  The  question,  then,  is, 

A.   Would   the    proposed  change    seriously   interfere 

with  the  recreation  of  the  pupils? 

b.  Resolved,  That  Ernest  Thompson  Seton's  animal 
stories  cultivate  in  boys  the  right  attitude  towards  ani- 
mals. 

I.   Origin  of  the  question  :  — 

A.   My   nephews'    interest   in    the   animal  stories  of 

Ernest  Thompson  Seton. 
II.   Definition  of  terms  :  — 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   BRIEF  83 

A.  Boys  —  between  nine  and  fifteen. 

B.  Right    attitude  —  based   on   right    understanding 

of  animals. 

III.  Admitted  facts  :  — 

A.  Purpose   of  author   to  rouse  reader's  interest  in 

animals  and  sympathy  for  them. 

B.  Reader's  interest  in  story  aroused. 

C.  Reader's  sympathy  for  hero  of  story  aroused. 

IV.  Debatable  issues  :  — 

A.  Writer's  method  conducive  to  cultivation  of  right 
understanding  of  actual  animals? 

f.   Resolved,  That  modern  illustrative  methods  have  not 
contributed  largely  to  real  education. 
I.   Origin  of  the  question  :  — 

A.  The  saying  that  our  modern  cheap  illustrative 
process  has  provided  a  "royal  road"  to 
learning  has  raised  the  question,  Has  the 
omnipresent  picture  contributed  to  real  edu- 
cation ? 
II.  Definition  of  terras  :  — 

A.   By  real  education  is  meant  genuine  cultivation. 
III.   Immaterial  issues  :  — 

A.  The  question  is  not,  Are  pictures  better  and  more 

numerous  ? 

B.  The  question  is  not,  Have   not  pictures  made  it 

possible  to  see  and  understand  much  that  we 
could  not  now  understand  without  great  effort 
without  them? 
IV.    Material  issues  :  — 

A.  The  question  is,  Has  not  the  omnipresent  picture 
educated  the  eye  at  the  expense  of  the  other 
senses? 


84  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

B.  Has  it  not  made  the  mind  too  dependent  upon 

the  eye  for  its  images? 

C.  Does  it  not  stultify  rather  than  stimulate  intellec- 

tual activity  ? 

3.  Look  over  the  addresses  of  distinguished  orators  till 
you  find  an  introduction  that  seems  to  you  strong  and  com- 
plete.    Make  a  brief  of  it  and  bring  it  to  class. 

4.  Bring  to  class  an  introduction  for  a  brief  on  the  ques- 
tion already  submitted  to  instructor.      (See  page  48.) 

THE  PROOF 

THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  EVIDENCE 

The  business  of  the  brief  proper  is  to  build  up  an 
irrefragable  argument,  to  prove  all  that  remains  to 
be  proved  after  the  introduction  is  completed.  The 
introduction  is  important  to  the  argument,  since  it 
establishes  the  major  premise  on  which  the  truth  of 
the  conclusion  partly  rests.  But  that  premise  is  estab- 
lished by  consent  and  not  by  argument.  The  intro- 
duction finished,  the  making  apparent  the  truth  of 
the  proposition  depends  entirely  on  the  proof  of  the 
minor  premise,  which  must  be  proved  by  argument. 

If  the  question  is  in  a  field  in  which  the  writer  is 
not  thoroughly  informed,  research  for  the  purpose  of 
amassing  evidence  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  draw- 
ing up  a  brief  ;  but  if  the  student  is  working,  as  at 
this  stage  he  should  be,  with  familiar  material  and 
has  at  hand  most  of  the  evidence  he  will  need,  he 


THE  PROOF  85 

may  proceed,  without  reference  to  the  chapter  on 
research,  to  organize  his  evidence  into  a  brief. 

One  may  have  at  command  a  mass  of  evidence, 
direct  and  indirect,  by  which  to  prove  a  proposition, 
and  yet  not  succeed  in  making  a  convincing  argu- 
ment. The  evidence  must  be  sifted  and  organized 
into  a  unified,  coherent  structure  before  it  becomes 
effective.  As  a  mob  in  which  there  is  excellent  ma- 
terial for  an  army,  is  comparatively  ineffective  be- 
cause in  it  the  potential  brigadier  is  not  distinguished 
from  the  major,  the  major  from  the  captain,  the  cap- 
tain from  the  private ;  just  so  an  amorphous  mass  of 
evidence  has  little  force  because  what  ought  to  be 
leading  propositions  and  what  ought  to  be  subordi- 
nate propositions  are  confused  as  equals. 

The  first  task  of  organization  is  to  sort  the  evi- 
dence and  arrange  it  according  to  its  rank  or  depend- 
ence. The  introduction  has  given  us  a  start  here. 
The  general  proposition  derived  from  the  resolution 
under  discussion  is,  as  it  were,  commander  in  chief ; 
those  issues  designated  in  the  introduction  as  material 
issues  give  the  propositions  that  are  its  immediate 
subordinates  ;  they  in  turn  are  supported  by  other 
propositions,  which  must  often  themselves  be  sup- 
ported; and  so  on. 

One  of  the  most  frequent  and  serious  faults  of 
those  inexperienced  in  drawing  briefs  is  the  failure 
to  distinguish  between  coordinate  and  subordinate 


86  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

propositions.  The  beginner  jots  down  as  coordi- 
nate propositions,  all  the  reasons,  near  and  remote, 
for  believing  a  proposition  to  be  true  that  occur  to 
him,  and  does  not  see  that  some  of  these  are  de- 
pendent on  others. 

Take,  for  example,  the  proposition,  Corporal  pun- 
ishment is  an  objectionable  mode  of  punishing 
children.  Reasons  for  the  truth  of  this  proposi- 
tion may  present  themselves  to  the  mind  helter- 
skelter  :  — 

A.  Corporal    punishment  causes   physical    injury 
and  unnecessary  suffering. 

B.  Whipping  rouses  resentment. 

C.  Severe  corporal  punishment  is  often  followed 
by  hours  or  days  of  languor  and  sickness. 

D.  Blows  received  from  angry  disciplinarians  often 
result  in  permanent  injuries. 

E.  Children's  conduct  is  often  worse  after  whip- 
ping than  before. 

F.  Children  taken  from  a  disciplinarian  who  whips 
and  placed  under  one  whose  methods  are  different 
have  shown  marked  improvement 

G.  Whipping  does  not  help  the  child  to  distinguish 
between  right  and  wrong. 

H.  Corporal  punishment  does  not  accomplish  its 
purpose. 

/.    It  does  not  develop  character. 

J.   Corporal   punishment  makes  the  culprit  keep 


THE  PROOF  8; 

from  wrongdoing  for  fear  of  pain  rather  than  from 
a  desire  to  do  what  is  right. 

K.   Children   have  been  made  lame  by  corporal 
punishment. 

L.  Children   have  been  made    deaf    by  corporal 
punishment. 

M.  Corporal  punishment  makes  children  cowardly. 

N.  Corporal  punishment  makes  children  tell  false- 
hoods to  avoid  pain. 

The  introduction  to   the   brief  will   help  to  bring 
order  out  of  this  chaos.     It  might  be  as  follows :  — 

I.  Definition  of  terms  :  — 

A.  Corporal    punishment   as    used   here    includes 

slapping,    whipping,    or   striking. 
II.  Immaterial  issues  :  All  agree,  that 

A.  The  purpose  of   punishing   children   is   to 

make  them  better. 

B.  Punishment  should  not  be  of  such  a  nature 

as  to  injure  the  child  physically  or  give 
unnecessary  pain. 

C.  Any  form  of  punishment  that  inflicts  physical 

pain  and  injury  and  is  morally  ineffective 
is  an  objectionable  form  of  punishment. 
III.  Material  issues  :  The  question  is, 

A.  Is  corporal  punishment,  as  here  defined,phys- 

ically  injurious  and  morally  ineffective? 
The   two   propositions  that  include  all   ideas  that 
come  under  the  chief  proposition  are  evidently  :  — 


88  PROVING   THE  PROPOSITION 

I.  Corporal  punishment  is  physically  injurious. 

II.  Corporal  punishment  is  morally  ineffective. 

If  we  look  over  the  propositions  we  have  made,  we 
find  that  I  means  about  the  same  as  A  and  that  it 
includes  under  it  C,  D,  K,  and  L.  We  find  that  II 
expresses  the  idea  expressed  by  propositions  H  and  /, 
and  that  the  remaining  propositions  are  all  in  some 
way  subordinate  to  it. 

Returning  to  I  and  examining  C,  D,  K,  and  L,  we 
find  that  they  are  not  coordinate.  C  seems  more 
coordinate  with  K  and  L  than  with  D,  but  does  not 
belong  under  D.  It  is  easy  to  supply  a  proposition 
that  is  coordinate  with  D  of  which  C  will  be  proof. 
The  first  section  of  the  brief  will  then  be  as  follows : 

Corporal  punishment  is  an  objectionable  mode  of 
punishment  for  children,  for 

I.  It  is  physically  injurious,  for 

A.  Its  temporary  effects  are  often  evil,  for 

i.  Children  have  been  made  sick  and  disabled 
by  severe  whipping  and  consequent  cry- 
ing. 

B.  Its  permanent  effects  are  often  evil,  for 

1.  Children  have  been  made  lame  by  corporal 

punishment.1 

2.  Children  have  been  made  deaf  by  corporal 

punishment.1 

1  In  a  complete  brief,  specific  cases  should  be  cited  to  support  this 
proposition. 


THE   PROOF  89 

There  are  more  propositions  to  be  grouped  under 
II,  and  their  arrangement  will  be  more  difficult.  We 
find,  however,  after  a  little  thought  that  three  general 
propositions  will  cover  all  the  propositions  given  :  — 

II.  Corporal  punishment  is  morally  ineffective, 
for 

A.  It  does  not  help  the  child  to  know  the  right. 

B.  It  does  not  help  the  child  to  desire  to  do 

rightly. 

C.  It  does  not  help  the  child  to  do  rightly. 

By  a  process  similar  to  that  already  suggested,  the 
propositions  belonging  under  A,  B,  and  C  may  be 
selected  and  supplied. 

II.  It  is  morally  ineffective,  for 

A.  It  does  not  help  the  child  to  know  what  is 

right,  for 

1.  It   does  not  make    evident  the    relation 

between  the   offence   and   the  punish- 
ment. 

2.  It    gives   the   child   the    idea   that    the 

physically    weak    must   submit    to   the 
physically  strong. 

B.  It  does  not  help  the  child  to   desire  to  do 

rightly,  for 
I.  It  does  not  lead  him   to   repent    of   his 

wrongdoing,  for 

a.  It  makes  him  more  conscious  of  being 
wronged  than  of  having  done  wrong. 


90  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

b.  It   leads    him    to    wish   to  avoid   pain 
rather   than   to   wish  to  do  what  is 
right. 
2.  It  leads  him  to  wish  to  do  wrong,  for 

a.  It   destroys  his  love   and  respect    for 

those  in  authority  over  him. 

b.  It  makes    many    children    sullen   and 

resentful. 
C.  It  does  not  help  the  child  to  do  rightly,  for 

1.  It  does  not  prevent  the  repetition  of  the 

same  offence,  for 

a.  Children  often  repeat  in  defiance  the 

offence  for  which  they  have  been 
punished. 

b.  Children    become   brutalized    and   de- 

liberately commit  an  offence  for  which 
they  know  the  penalty  will  be  a  whip- 
ping. 

2.  It  does  not  prevent  the  child's  offending 

in  other  ways,  for 

a.  It  leads  him  to  lie  to  avoid  pain. 

b.  It  leads  him  to  concealment. 

c.  It  leads  him  to  acts  of  vengeance. 
Only  complete  simple  propositions  are  used  in  the 

brief.  All  propositions  in  the  brief  are  directly  or 
indirectly  related  to  the  leading  proposition ;  the 
relationship  is  one  that  can  be  signified  by  the  con- 
junction "for."  The  order  throughout  is,  conclusion, 


THE   PROOF  91 

then  evidence.  To  get  this  firmly  fixed  in  mind  at 
the  start  will  save  the  student  much  perplexity.  It 
is  really  the  order  to  which  we  are  all  accustomed. 
The  teacher  in  the  class  room  calls  for  your  con- 
clusion, then  your  evidence  :  you  must  tell  what  case 
a  Latin  noun  is  in  and  then  give  the  reason  that  has 
led  to  your  conclusion  ;  you  must  name  the  chemical 
compound  and  then  tell  the  signs  ;  give  the  answer 
to  the  problem,  then  explain  your  process. 

If  you  find  yourself  using  in  your  brief  such  con- 
junctions as  "as,"  "since,"  "hence,"  "  therefore,"  "con- 
sequently," you  may  know  immediately  that  your  order 
is  wrong,  that  you  are  giving  the  conclusion  after  the 
evidence  rather  than  before  it.  "  For  "  is  a  safe  con- 
junction to  use. 

The  requirement,  conclusion  before  evidence,  is 
one  made  not  merely  for  uniformity,  but  because  this 
order  is  more  convincing.  If  you  furnish  your  hearer 
or  reader  with  the  conclusion  at  the  start,  he  knows 
just  what  is  demanded  of  the  evidence  presented  to 
him,  and  can  as  he  receives  it  judge  its  adequacy. 
Whereas,  if  the  evidence  is  presented  first,  the  reader 
or  hearer  is  not  aware  of  what  it  is  expected  to  prove 
and  flounders  blindly  about  in  the  dark,  trying  to  find 
out  for  himself  its  purpose.  When  he  reaches  the 
conclusion,  its  statement  either  seems  superfluous  be- 
cause he  has  already  discovered  it  for  himself,  or,  if 
he  has  not  been  able  to  infer  it  from  the  evidence,  it 


92  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

seems  questionable  and  he  must  review  the  points 
made  to  see  if  the  conclusion  is  fully  sustained.  For 
the  economy  of  mental  effort,  the  order,  conclusion 
before  evidence,  should  be  uniformly  followed  through- 
out the  entire  argument. 

But,  one  might  ask,  is  not  the  end  the  place 
for  the  conclusion.  It  is.  It  would  be  unfortunate 
to  close  a  long  argument  with  a  bit  of  evidence 
for  the  truth  of  a  conclusion  almost  lost  sight  of.  It 
is,  therefore,  customary  to  append  to  the  argument 
proper  what  is  technically  called  the  "conclusion." 
This  is  a  short  paragraph  summing  up  the  main  lines 
of  argument  and  stating  the  conclusion.  In  this  final 
paragraph  the  order  is  reversed  and  the  evidence  is 
given  first.  The  conjunctions  used  are,  accordingly, 
those  not  used  in  the  argument  proper,  "since,"  "as," 
"  therefore."  The  paragraph  ends  with  the  statement 
of  the  proposition  that  has  been  proved. 

For  the  convenience  of  the  instructor  in  marking 
the  papers  there  should  be  uniformity  as  to  the  sym- 
bols used  to  designate  the  rank  and  number  of  a 
proposition.  Various  methods  are  in  use  but  the  fol- 
lowing is  recommended :  — 

The  main  proposition,  standing  alone  at  the  head 
of  the  argument  without  the  possibility  of  a  coordi- 
nate proposition,  should  not  be  numbered.  The 
propositions  that  immediately  support  this  propo- 
sition should  be  marked  by  Roman  numerals.  The 


THE   PROOF  93 

propositions  sustaining  these  propositions  should  be 
marked  by  capital  letters  ;  their  subalterns  by  Arabic 
numerals,  and  so  on  :  — 
I. 
A. 
i. 

2. 

a. 
CO 

(2) 

(3) 

w 

B. 
i. 

a. 

b.  etc. 
2. 

Each  proposition  after  the  main  proposition  should 
have  before  it  one  number  or  letter  and  only  one.  If  a 
student  finds  himself  writing  B  i  before  a  proposition 
he  may  know  that  he  has  failed  to  insert  a  general 
proposition  coordinate  with  the  proposition  marked  A. 
Only  propositions  bearing  the  relationship  of 
reason  or  evidence  to  the  proposition  controlling 
thsm,  should  be  lettered  as  subordinate  to  it.  The 
relationship  between  proposition  I  and  A,  between 
A  and  i,  between  i  and  a,  etc.,  must  be  such  that  it 
can  be  expressed  by  the  conjunction  "  for." 


94  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Coordinate  propositions,  all  those  designated  by 
Roman  numerals,  all  lettered  by  capitals,  etc.,  must 
bear  such  a  relationship  to  each  other  as  could  be 
expressed  by  "  and  "  or  "  yet."  The  student  should  be 
sure  that  II  and  III,  as  well  as  I,  are  directly  related  to 
the  main  proposition  as  proof ;  C,  DtE,  as  well  as  A  and 
B,  must  be  directly  related  as  proof  to  I,  II,  or  III. 
Every  proposition  in  the  brief  proper  must  bear  the  re- 
lation of  evidence  to  the  one  next  above  it  in  rank.  A 
large  number  of  coordinate  propositions  is  usually  a  sign 
that  the  student  has  not  examined  his  evidence  closely 
enough  to  discover  the  existing  relations  of  dependence. 

In  looking  over  a  brief  it  is  always  well  to  glance 
at  all  the  coordinate  propositions  of  one  rank  before 
looking  at  the  elaboration  of  any  one.  You  should 
look  at  all  propositions  designated  by  Roman  nu- 
merals before  looking  at  A,  B,  and  C,  under  any  one  of 
them.  You  should  glance  at  A,  B,  and  C  under  I 
before  you  look  at  i,  2,  3,  under  A,  and  so  on.  Grasp 
the  idea  extensively ;  get  the  purpose  and  compass  of 
the  argument  before  you  test  a  part  of  it  intensively. 
This  does  not  mean  that  you  must  partly  work  out 
the  development  of  the  argument  under  II  and  III 
before  you  complete  the  argument  under  I.  After 
you  have  discovered  II,  III,  IV,  etc.,  you  may  leave 
them  entirely  until  you  have  completed  your  analysis 
of  I.  After  you  have  discovered  A,  B,  C,  D,  etc., 
under  I,  you  may  leave  B,  C,  and  D,  and  focus  your 


THE   PROOF  95 

attention  on  A.  When  you  have  discovered  i,  2,  3,  4, 
etc.,  you  may  leave  2,  3,  and  4,  and  give  your  attention 
to  the  proof  of  i .  The  point  is  that  you  must  recognize 
2,  3,  and  4  before  you  proceed  to  the  development  of 
i .  This  is  important  not  only  in  reading  briefs  ;  it  is 
important  also  in  drawing  briefs,  whether  you  are 
reducing  a  written  argument  to  a  brief,  or  are  writing 
a  brief  to  be  developed  into  a  forensic.  The  regular 
working  order  for  analysis  is :  — 

General  proposition. 

I. 
II. 
Ill,  etc. 

I. 
A. 
B. 
C.  etc. 


I.  A. 

i. 

2. 

3.  etc. 


I.  A.  i. 

a. 


c.  etc. 


This,  however,  is  not  the  order  in  which  work  is  to 
be  presented  when  finished. 


PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 


EXERCISES 

i.  Supply  a  main  proposition  and  subproposition  for  a 
brief  in  which  the  five  propositions  given  in  the  following 
introduction  shall  be  the  five  chief  divisions  of  the  argu- 
ment :  — 

"A  German  who  has  seen  the  world  and  tries  to  make  his 
thinking  free  from  the  chance  influences  of  his  surroundings 
may  easily  ask  himself  whether  it  would  not  be  most  desir- 
able that  all  nations  should  become  republican  democracies 
after  the  American  model.  If  he  does  not  ask  the  question 
himself,  he  is  sure  to  be  asked  it  by  an  American  friend  who 
happens  not  to  agree  with  the  last  speech  of  the  German 
emperor,  and  who,  therefore,  takes  for  granted  that  an 
educated  German,  outside  of  the  reach  of  the  German  state 
attorney,  will  frankly  confess  that  monarchy  is  a  mediaeval 
relic  and  that  democracy  alone  is  life.  When  one  of  my 
friends  approached  me  the  other  day  with  such  an  inquiry, 
I  was  in  a  hurry,  and  my  answers  had  to  be  short.  I  told 
him,  first,  that  the  achievements  of  democratic  America  are 
not  the  achievements  of  American  democracy ;  secondly, 
that  democracy  in  itself  has  as  many  bad  tendencies  as 
good  ones,  and  is  thus  not  better  than  aristocracy ;  thirdly, 
that  the  question  whether  democracy  or  aristocracy  is  better 
does  not  exist  to-day;  fourthly,  that  Germany  daily  be- 
comes more  democratic,  while  America  steadily  grows  aris- 
tocratic ;  fifthly,  that  there  is  no  difference  between  the  two 
nations  anyway.  My  friend  insisted  that  my  argument  stood 
on  the  same  level  with  the  oath  of  the  woman  who  was 
accused  before  the  court  of  breaking  a  pot  which  she  had 
borrowed  from  her  neighbor,  and  she  swore,  first,  that  the 


THE   PROOF  97 

pot  was  not  broken  when  she  returned  it ;  secondly,  that 
the  pot  was  broken  when  she  borrowed  it ;  and  thirdly,  that 
she  had  not  borrowed  the  pot.  Well,  that  may  be  ;  but  my 
haste  alone  was  to  blame,  as  I  could  not  explain  in  the  few 
words  I  had  time  for  that  democracy  can  cover  very  differ- 
ent tendencies.  Thus  I  promised,  when  I  had  leisure,  to  dis- 
entangle my  twisted  argument,  and  to  illustrate,  perhaps  even 
to  establish  it.  The  following  remarks  are,  as  far  as  possible, 
a  fulfillment  of  my  promise,  and  they  follow  exactly  the  order 
of  the  argument."  —  MUNSTERBERG  :  American  Traits, 

2.  Organize  the  following  propositions  into  a  brief  to 
prove  the  negative  of  the  question,  Would  such  saloons  as 
the  Subway  Tavern  promote  the  cause  of  temperance  in 
New  York  City  ? 

They  would  not  diminish  the  habit  of  drinking. 

They  would  degrade  moral  standards. 

They  would  not  attract  the  hard  drinkers. 

They  would  not  benefit  those  who  drink  moderately. 

They  would  lure  many  who  do  not  drink  to  form  the 
habit. 

A  hard  drinker  does  not  care  for  artistic  furnishings. 

A  hard  drinker  is  not  fastidious  about  the  quality  of  the 
liquor  he  drinks  if  it  is  strong  enough. 

A  hard  drinker  could  find  cheaper  drink  elsewhere. 

The  Christopher  Slys  do  not  know  how  to  act  in  respect- 
able surroundings. 

They  prefer  what  they  are  accustomed  to. 

A  hard  drinker  wants  quantity. 

A  hard  drinker  goes  where  he  can  get  the  most  liquor  for 
his  money. 

He  goes  where  there  are  no  restrictions  on  the  amount 
he  may  drink. 

ARGUMENTATION  —  7 


98  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Saloons  operated  on  the  plan  of  the  Subway  Tavern  would 
have  to  charge  good  prices  to  make  a  profit. 

They  would  sell  pure  liquor  only. 

They  would  offer  no  inducements  for  their  patrons  to 
buy  more  than  one  drink. 

They  would  have  high  running  expenses. 

They  would  need  a  good  building. 

They  would  have  to  provide  amusement. 

They  would  have  to  employ  trustworthy  and  capable 
attendants. 

If  a  moderate  drinker  develops  a  taste  for  drink,  he  will 
leave  the  restricted  saloon  and  go  where  he  can  get  what  he 
wants. 

If  a  moderate  drinker  does  not  form  a  taste  for  drink,  he 
has  no  need  of  such  a  saloon. 

A  moderate  drinker  will  prefer  other  saloons. 

There  are  many  respectable  saloons  where  the  purchaser 
of  one  or  two  glasses  of  beer  is  welcome  to  sit  throughout 
the  evening. 

There  are  many  saloons  with  furnishings  more  pleasing 
to  the  ordinary  drinking  man's  taste. 

The  moderate  drinker  resents  the  idea  of  supervision. 

What  is  gaudy  to  the  man  of  refined  taste  seems  cheerful 
to  the  man  whose  taste  is  not  cultivated. 

What  is  harmonious  to  the  man  of  refined  taste  seems 
dull  and  dreary  to  the  uncultivated  man. 

The  average  poor  drinking  man  does  not  want  a  saloon 
to  which  he  can  take  his  family. 

He  wants  to  get  away  from  obligations. 

He  wants  to  escape  claims  on  his  sociability  and  his 
pocketbook. 

He  wants  to  escape  criticism. 


THE   PROOF  99 

Such  saloons  would  appeal  to  young  men  who  had  not 
the  habit  of  drinking  in  public. 

Such  saloons  would  appeal  to  women. 

Such  saloons  would  prove  an  open  door  to  degradation. 

Such  places  are  considered  respectable. 

Their  club  features  are  attractive. 

They  offer  comfort  and  sociability  and  entertainment  for 
a  small  fee. 

The  purchase  of  a  cup  of  coffee  or  a  mug  of  beer  entitles 
a  guest  to  an  evening's  entertainment. 

The  newcomer  would  soon  fall  into  the  habit  of  drinking. 

He  would  be  associated  with  drinking  men. 

He  would  feel  it  unpleasant  to  be  different  from  others. 

They  make  people  think  there  is  no  wrong  in  the  prac- 
tice of  drinking. 

They  make  people  think  there  is  no  wrong  in  selling 
intoxicating  liquor  for  gain. 

They  make  the  beginner  think  that  all  men  have  self- 
control  in  drink. 

They  make  the  habitual  drinker  think  that  self-control  is 
expected  of  no  man. 

They  are  founded  on  the  assumption  that  men  may  drink 
whiskey  in  moderation. 

They  afford  opportunity  for  a  man  to  see  his  wife,  his 
children,  and  his  neighbors  drinking  spirituous  liquors. 

They  afford  opportunity  for  a  man  to  see  educated  men 
and  women  drinking. 

Educated  people  visit  and  patronize  such  places  out  of 
curiosity. 

Habit  brings  him  to  excuse  his  friends  and  neighbors 
when  they  indulge  to  excess. 

He  soon  comes  to  excuse  over  indulgence  in  himself. 


100  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Reform  is  not  the  sole  motive  of  the  "  Tavern." 
A  large  profit  on  the  original  investment  is  possible. 
Dividends  of  five  per  cent  are  permitted. 
The  surplus  is  to   be  invested  in  similar   profit  paying 
"  Taverns." 

Men  of  high  social  standing  accept  these  profits. 

3.  What  is  the  leading  proposition  in  the  following  para- 
graph ?  Organize  the  proof  in  brief  form. 

"  But  that  the  main  function  of  coloring  is  protection 
may  be  decided  from  the  simplest  observation  of  animal 
life  in  any  part  of  the  world.  Even  among  the  larger  ani- 
mals, which  one  might  suppose  independent  of  subterfuge 
and  whose  appearance  anywhere  but  in  their  native  haunts 
suggests  a  very  opposite  theory,  the  harmony  of  color 
with  environment  is  always  more  or  less  striking.  When 
we  look,  for  instance,  at  the  coat  of  a  zebra,  with  its  thunder- 
and-lightning  pattern  of  black  and  white  stripes,  we  should 
think  such  a  conspicuous  object  designed  to  court  rather 
than  to  elude  attention.  But  the  effect  in  nature  is  just  the 
opposite.  The  black  and  white  somehow  take  away  the 
sense  of  a  solid  body  altogether ;  the  two  colors  seem  to 
blend  into  the  most  inconspicuous  gray,  and  at  close  quar- 
ters the  effect  is  as  of  bars  of  light  seen  through  the  branches 
of  shrubs.  I  have  found  myself  in  the  forest  gazing  at  what 
I  supposed  to  be  a  solitary  zebra,  its  presence  betrayed  by 
some  motion  due  to  my  approach,  and  suddenly  realized 
that  I  was  surrounded  by  an  entire  herd  which  were  all 
invisible  until  they  moved.  The  motionlessness  of  wild 
game  in  the  field  when  danger  is  near  is  well  known ;  and 
every  hunter  is  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  seeing  even  the 
largest  animals,  though  they  are  standing  just  in  front  of  him. 


THE  PROOF  101 

The  tiger,  whose  stripes  are  obviously  meant  to  imitate  the 
reeds  of  the  jungle  in  which  it  lurks,  is  nowhere  found  in 
Africa ;  but  its  beautiful  cousin,  the  leopard,  abounds  in 
these  forests,  and  its  spotted  pelt  probably  conveys  the  same 
sense  of  indistinctness  as  in  the  case  of  the  zebra.  The 
hippopotamus  seems  to  find  the  deep  water  of  the  rivers  — 
where  it  spends  the  greater  portion  of  its  time  —  a  sufficient 
protection  ;  but  the  crocodile  is  marvelously  concealed  by 
its  knotted,  mud-colored  hide,  and  it  is  often  quite  impos- 
sible to  tell  at  a  distance  whether  the  objects  lying  along 
the  river  banks  are  alligators  or  fallen  logs."  —  HENRY 
DRUMMOND  :  Tropical  Africa. 

4.  Reduce  to  brief  form,  giving  the  main  proposition, 
the  three  propositions  that  support  it,  and  the  several  prop- 
ositions supporting  them  ;  supply  reasons  for  the  assertion, 
That  the  requirement  that  a  member  of  Congress  be  a  resi- 
dent of  the  district  that  elects  him,  is  due  to  the  To-the- 
victor-belong-the-spoils  system  of  civil  service  :  — 

"  Our  first  aim  should  be,  as  it  has  been,  the  reform  of  our 
civil  service,  for  that  is  the  fruitful  mother  of  all  our  ills.  It 
is  the  most  aristocratic  system  in  the  world,  for  it  depends 
on  personal  favor  and  is  the  reward  of  personal  service,  and 
the  power  of  the  political  boss  is  built  up  and  maintained, 
like  that  of  the  mediaeval  robber  baron,  by  his  free  hand ed- 
ness  in  distributing  the  property  of  other  people.  From  it 
is  derived  the  notion  that  the  public  treasure  is  a  fund  to  a 
share  of  which  every  one  is  entitled  who  by  fraud  or  favor 
can  get  it,  and  from  this  again  the  absurd  doctrine  of  rota- 
tion in  office  so  that  each  may  secure  his  proportion ;  and 
that  the  business  of  the  nation  may  be  carried  on  by  a 
succession  of  apprentices  who  are  dismissed,  just  as  they  are 


IO2  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

getting  an  inkling  of  their  trade,  to  make  room  for  others, 
who  are  in  due  time  to  be  turned  loose  on  the  world,  passed 
masters  in  nothing  but  in  incompetence  for  any  useful 
career.  From  this,  too,  has  sprung  the  theory  of  the  geo- 
graphical allotment  of  patronage,  as  if  ability  were  depend- 
ent, like  wheat,  upon  the  soil ;  and  the  more  mischievous 
one,  that  members  of  Congress  must  be  residents  of  the 
district  that  elects  them,  a  custom  which  has  sometimes 
excluded  men  of  proved  ability,  in  the  full  vigor  of  their 
faculties  and  the  ripeness  of  their  experience,  from  the 
councils  of  the  nation."  —  JAMES  R.  LOWELL  :  The  Inde- 
pendent in  Politics. 

5.  Find  the  main  proposition  in  the  following  argument; 
find  the  two  chief  supporting  propositions,  and  organize  the 
sustaining  facts  in  brief  form  :  — 

"  Sir,  ...  as  far  as  I  am  capable  of  discerning,  there  are 
but  three  ways  of  proceeding  relative  to  this  stubborn  spirit 
which  prevails  in  your  colonies,  and  disturbs  your  govern- 
ment. These  are :  to  change  that  spirit,  as  inconvenient, 
by  removing  the  causes ;  to  prosecute  it  as  criminal ;  or  to 
comply  with  it  as  necessary.  I  would  not  be  guilty  of  an 
imperfect  enumeration ;  I  can  think  of  but  these  three. 
Another  has  indeed  been  started,  —  that  of  giving  up  the 
colonies ;  but  it  met  so  slight  a  reception  that  I  do  not 
think  myself  obliged  to  dwell  a  great  while  upon  it.  It  is 
nothing  but  a  little  sally  of  anger,  like  the  frowardness  of 
peevish  children,  who,  when  they  cannot  get  all  they  would 
have,  are  resolved  to  take  nothing. 

"  The  first  of  these  plans,  to  change  the  spirit,  as  incon- 
venient, by  removing  the  causes,  I  think  is  the  most  like  a 
systematic  proceeding.  It  is  radical  in  its  principle  j  but  it 


THE   PROOF  103 

is  attended  with  great  difficulties,  some  of  them  little  short, 
as  I  conceive,  of  impossibilities.  This  will  appear  by  ex- 
amining into  the  plans  which  have  been  proposed. 

"  As  the  growing  population  in  the  colonies  is  evidently 
one  cause  of  their  resistance,  it  was  last  session  mentioned 
in  both  Houses,  by  men  of  weight,  and  received  not  without 
applause,  that  in  order  to  check  this  evil,  it  would  be  proper 
for  the  crown  to  make  no  further  grants  of  land.  But  to 
this  scheme  there  are  two  objections.  The  first,  that  there 
is  already  so  much  unsettled  land  in  private  hands  as  to 
afford  room  for  an  immense  future  population,  although  the 
crown  not  only  withheld  its  grants,  but  annihilated  its  soil. 
If  this  be  the  case,  then  the  only  effect  of  this  avarice  of 
desolation,  this  hoarding  of  a  royal  wilderness,  would  be  to 
raise  the  value  of  the  possessions  in  the  hands  of  the  great 
private  monopolists,  without  any  adequate  check  to  the 
growing  and  alarming  mischief  of  population. 

"  But  if  you  stopped  your  grants,  what  would  be  the  conse- 
quence? The  people  would  occupy  without  grants.  They 
have  already  so  occupied  in  many  places.  You  cannot 
station  garrisons  in  every  part  of  these  deserts.  If  you  drive 
the  people  from  one  place,  they  will  carry  on  their  annual 
tillage  and  remove  with  their  flocks  and  herds  to  another. 
Many  of  the  people  in  the  back  settlements  are  already 
little  attached  to  particular  situations.  Already  they  have 
topped  the  Appalachian  Mountains.  From  thence  they 
behold  before  them  an  immense  plain,  one  vast,  rich,  level 
meadow,  a  square  of  five  hundred  miles.  Over  this  they 
would  wander  without  a  possibility  of  restraint ;  they  would 
change  their  manners  with  the  habits  of  their  life ;  would 
soon  forget  a  government  by  which  they  were  disowned ; 
would  become  hordes  of  English  Tartars,  and  pouring 


104  PROVING  THE  PROPOSITION 

down  upon  your  unfortified  frontiers  a  fierce  and  irresistible 
cavalry,  become  masters  of  your  governors  and  your  coun- 
sellors, your  collectors  and  comptrollers,  and  of  all  the  slaves 
that  adhered  to  them.  Such  would,  and  in  no  long  time 
must,  be  the  effect  of  attempting  to  forbid  as  a  crime,  and  to 
suppress  as  an  evil,  the  command  and  blessing  of  provi- 
dence, '  Increase  and  multiply.'  Such  would  be  the  happy 
result  of  the  endeavor  to  keep  as  a  lair  of  wild  beasts  that 
earth  which  God,  by  an  express  charter,  has  given  to  the 
children  of  men.  Far  different  and  surely  much  wiser  has 
been  our  policy  hitherto.  Hitherto  we  have  invited  our 
people,  by  every  kind  of  bounty,  to  fixed  establishments. 
We  have  invited  the  husbandman  to  look  to  authority  for 
his  title.  We  have  taught  him  piously  to  believe  in  the 
mysterious  virtue  of  wax  and  parchment.  We  have  thrown 
each  tract  of  land,  as  it  was  peopled,  into  districts,  that  the 
ruling  power  should  never  be  wholly  out  of  sight.  We  have 
settled  all  we  could,  and  we  have  carefully  attended  every 
settlement  with  government. 

"  Adhering,  Sir,  as  I  do,  to  this  policy,  as  well  as  for  the 
reasons  I  have  just  given,  I  think  this  new  project  of  hedg- 
ing-in  population  to  be  neither  prudent  nor  practicable. 

"To  impoverish  the  colonies  in  general,  and  in  particular 
to  arrest  the  noble  course  of  their  marine  enterprises,  would 
be  a  more  easy  task.  I  freely  confess  it.  We  have  shown 
a  disposition  to  a  system  of  this  kind,  —  a  disposition  even  to 
continue  the  restraint  after  the  offense,  looking  on  ourselves 
as  rivals  to  our  colonies,  and  persuaded  that  of  course  we 
must  gain  all  that  they  shall  lose.  Much  mischief  we  may 
certainly  do.  The  power  inadequate  to  all  other  things 
is  often  more  than  sufficient  for  this.  I  do  not  look  on  the 
dkect  and  immediate  power  of  the  colonies  to  resist  our 


THE  PROOF  105 

violence  as  very  formidable.  In  this,  however,  I  may  be 
mistaken.  But  when  I  consider  that  we  have  colonies  for 
no  purpose  but  to  be  serviceable  to  us,  it  seems  to  my  poor 
understanding  a  little  preposterous  to  make  them  unservice- 
able in  order  to  keep  them  obedient.  It  is,  in  truth,  nothing 
more  than  the  old  and,  as  I  thought,  exploded  problem  of 
tyranny,  which  proposes  to  beggar  its  subjects  into  submis- 
sion. But  remember,  when  you  have  completed  your  sys- 
tem of  impoverishment,  that  Nature  still  proceeds  in  her 
ordinary  course  ;  that  discontent  will  increase  with  misery  ; 
and  that  there  are  critical  moments  in  the  fortune  of  all 
states,  when  they  who  are  too  weak  to  contribute  to  your 
prosperity  may  be  strong  enough  to  complete  your  ruin. 
Spoliatis  arma  supersunt. 

"  The  temper  and  character  which  prevail  in  our  colonies 
are,  I  am  afraid,  unalterable  by  any  human  art.  We  cannot, 
I  fear,  falsify  the  pedigree  of  this  fierce  people  and  per- 
suade them  that  they  are  not  sprung  from  a  nation  in  whose 
veins  the  blood  of  freedom  circulates.  The  language  in 
which  they  would  hear  you  tell  them  this  tale  would  detect 
the  imposition ;  your  speech  would  betray  you.  An  English- 
man is  the  unfittest  person  on  earth  to  argue  another  Eng- 
lishman into  slavery. 

"  I  think  it  is  nearly  as  little  in  our  power  to  change  their 
republican  religion  as  their  free  descent,  or  to  substitute 
the  Roman  Catholic  as  a  penalty,  or  the  Church  of  England 
as  an  improvement.  The  mode  of  inquisition  and  dragoon- 
ing is  going  out  of  fashion  in  the  Old  World,  and  I  should 
not  confide  much  to  their  efficacy  in  the  New.  The  educa- 
tion of  the  Americans  is  also  on  the  same  unalterable  bottom 
with  their  religion.  You  cannot  persuade  them  to  burn 
their  books  of  curious  science,  to  banish  their  lawyers  from 


106  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

their  courts  of  laws,  or  to  quench  the  lights  of  their  assem- 
blies by  refusing  to  choose  those  persons  who  are  best  read 
in  their  privileges.  It  would  be  no  less  impracticable  to 
think  of  wholly  annihilating  the  popular  assemblies  in  which 
these  lawyers  sit.  The  army,  by  which  we  must  govern  in 
their  place,  would  be  far  more  chargeable  to  us ;  not  quite 
so  effectual;  and  perhaps  in  the  end  full  as  difficult  to  be 
kept  in  obedience. 

"With  regard  to  the  high  aristocratic  spirit  of  Virginia  and 
the  southern  colonies,  it  has  been  proposed,  I  know,  to 
reduce  it  by  declaring  a  general  enfranchisement  of  their 
slaves.  This  project  has  had  its  advocates  and  panegyrists ; 
yet  I  never  could  argue  myself  into  any  opinion  of  it.  Slaves 
are  often  much  attached  to  their  masters.  A  general  wild 
offer  of  liberty  would  not  always  be  accepted.  History  fur- 
nishes few  instances  of  it.  It  is  sometimes  as  hard  to  per- 
suade slaves  to  be  free,  as  it  is  to  compel  freemen  to  be 
slaves ;  and  in  this  auspicious  scheme  we  should  have  both 
these  pleasing  tasks  on  our  hands  at  once.  But  when  we 
talk  of  enfranchisement,  do  we  not  perceive  that  the  Ameri- 
can master  may  enfranchise  too,  and  arm  servile  hands  in 
defense  of  freedom?  —  a  measure  to  which  other  people 
have  had  recourse  more  than  once,  and  not  without  success, 
in  a  desperate  situation  of  their  affairs. 

"  Slaves  as  these  unfortunate  black  people  are,  and  dull 
as  all  men  are  from  slavery,  must  they  not  a  little  suspect 
the  offer  of  freedom  from  that  very  nation  which  has  sold 
them  to  their  present  masters?  from  that  nation,  one  of 
whose  causes  of  quarrel  with  those  masters  is  their  refusal 
to  deal  any  more  in  that  inhuman  traffic?  An  offer  of  free- 
dom from  England  would  come  rather  oddly,  shipped  to 
them  in  an  African  vessel,  which  is  refused  an  entry  into  the 


THE   PROOF  107 

ports  of  Virginia  or  Carolina  with  a  cargo  of  three  hundred 
Angola  negroes.  It  would  be  curious  to  see  the  Guinea 
captain  attempting  at  the  same  instant  to  publish  his  proc- 
lamation of  liberty,  and  to  advertise  his  sale  of  slaves. 

"  But  let  us  suppose  all  these  moral  difficulties  got  over. 
The  ocean  remains.  You  cannot  pump  this  dry ;  and  as 
long  as  it  continues  in  its  present  bed,  so  long  all  the  causes 
which  weaken  authority  by  distance  will  continue. 

'  Ye  gods,  annihilate  but  space  and  time, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy ! ' 

was  a  pious  and  passionate  prayer ;  but  just  as  reasonable 
as  many  of  the  serious  wishes  of  grave  and  solemn  politi- 
cians. 

"  If  then,  Sir,  it  seems  almost  desperate  to  think  of  any 
alterative  course  for  changing  the  moral  causes  (and  not 
quite  easy  to  remove  the  natural)  which  produce  prejudices 
irreconcilable  to  the  late  exercise  of  our  authority,  but 
that  the  spirit  infallibly  will  continue ;  and  continuing,  will 
produce  such  effects  as  now  embarrass  us,  —  the  second 
mode  under  consideration  is  to  prosecute  that  spirit  in 
its  overt  acts  as  criminal" —  BURKE  :  Conciliation  with  the 
Colonies. 

THE   QUANTITY   OF   EVIDENCE 

All  parts  of  a  brief  must  be  correctly  related,  but  a 
brief  that  is  absolutely  coherent,  and  correct  in  form, 
may  fail  totally  as  an  argument.  The  failure  may  be 
due  to  insufficient  evidence. 

Evidence  is  insufficient  when  there  are  not  enough 
lines  of  argument  worked  out  to  sustain  the  main  prop- 


108  PROVING  THE  PROPOSITION 

osition,  or  when  a  line  of  argument  is  not  carried  far 
enough.  There  must  be  enough  supporting  proposi- 
tions, and  each  of  them  must  be  firmly  established. 
Each  pier  of  the  bridge  of  argument  must  rest  on 
bed  rock,  and  there  must  be  piers  enough. 

The  error  of  not  having  enough  supporting  propo- 
sitions should  be  carefully  guarded  against.  Each 
proposition,  with  the  proposition  or  propositions  sup- 
porting it,  forms  a  contracted  syllogism  or  enthymeme. 
From  the  conclusion  and  premise  given  the  other 
premise  is  easily  inferred,  and  the  syllogism  completed. 
Where  the  reasons  are  insufficient  the  middle  term  is 
inexact,  and  the  major  premise  is  accordingly  not 
admissible. 

When  we  assert  that  Whittier's  poems  show  him 
to  have  been  an  Abolitionist,  for 

I.  His  poems  show  him  to  have  been  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  antislavery  movement; 
and  proceed  to  establish  the  truth  of  the  proposition, 
His  poems  show  him  to  have  been  deeply  interested 
in  the  antislavery  movement,  without  offering  other 
coordinate  reasons  to  prove  that  he  was  an  Aboli- 
tionist, we  imply  the  following  syllogism  :  — 

All  men  who  were  deeply  interested  in  the  antislavery 
movement  were  Abolitionists. 

Whittier  was  deeply  interested  in  the  antislavery  move- 
ment. 

Whittier  was  an  Abolitionist. 


THE   PROOF  109 

The  major  premise  of  this  proposition  is,  however, 
not  tenable,  since  the  slaveholders  themselves  must 
have  felt  a  keen  interest  in  a  movement  so  important 
to  them.  If,  then,  we  add  a  second  reason,  Whittier' s 
poems  show  him  to  have  believed  that  slavery  was 
wrong,  what  of  the  major  premise  ?  The  middle 
term  will  then  be,  All  men  who  were  deeply  interested 
in  the  antislavery  movement  and  believed  slavery  to 
be  wrong.  The  resulting  major  premise  is  still  un- 
satisfactory, for  not  all  men  who  were  deeply  interested 
in  the  antislavery  movement  and  believed  slavery  to 
be  wrong  were  Abolitionists.  Lincoln  was  such  a 
man  and  he  was  not  an  Abolitionist  as  distinguished 
from  a  Republican. 

If  we  add  a  third  reason,  For  he  gave  the  move- 
ment his  support,  we  shall  have  the  following 
syllogism : 

All  men  who  were  deeply  interested  in  the  antislavery  move- 
ment, who  believed  slavery  to  be  wrong,  and  who  gave  their 
support  to  the  abolition  movement  were  Abolitionists. 

Whittier  was  a  man  who  was  deeply  interested  in  the 
antislavery  movement,  believed  slavery  to  be  wrong,  and 
gave  his  support  to  the  abolition  movement. 

Whittier  was  an  Abolitionist. 

At  last  we  have  a  satisfactory  middle  term  and 
consequently  an  admissible  major  premise. 

One  reasons,  The  Indians  were  not  driven  from 
Florida  against  their  wish,  for  a  treaty  agreeing  to 


1 10  PROVING    THE    PROPOSITION 

their  removal  had  been  signed  by  leading  Seminoles. 
Evidence  that  such  a  treaty  had  been  made  is,  of 
course,  wanted ;  but  that  fact,  however  firmly  estab- 
lished, is  insufficient  to  prove  that  the  Indians  were  not 
driven  from  Florida  against  their  will.  An  added 
fact  must  be  proved ;  the  treaty  must  be  shown  to 
have  been  signed  by  an  adequate  representation  of 
the  Seminoles,  acting  understandingly  and  without 
bribery  or  coercion. 

At  every  step  through  the  argument  the  test  of 
whether  or  not  there  is  enough  collateral  evidence 
is  the  implied  major  premise.  Do  the  coordinate 
propositions  taken  together  imply  a  tenable  major 
premise  ?  Have  we  enough  reasons  for  maintaining 
that  Whittier  was  deeply  interested  in  the  anti- 
slavery  movement  ?  Take  for  reasons, 

A.  He  gave  much  attention  to  the  question. 

B.  His  was  an  enduring  interest. 

C.  His  was  a  heartfelt  interest. 

The  major  premise  suggested  by  these  propositions 
is,  All  men  who  give  much  attention  to  a  question, 
who  have  an  enduring  interest  in  it,  and  a  heartfelt 
interest  in  it,  are  men  who  are  deeply  interested  in  a 
question.  This  seems  a  proposition  that  would  be 
granted  by  both  sides.  The  base  for  the  argument 
is  broad  enough. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  error  of  allowing  the  prop- 
osition to  rest  at  last  on  nothing  substantial,  on  un- 


THE  PROOF  III 

proved  assertion,  is  frequent.  We  are  amused  at  the 
nal'vete"  of  people  who  accounted  for  the  support  of 
the  earth  by  saying  it  rested  on  the  back  of  an 
elephant,  and  that  the  elephant  stood  on  a  tortoise, 
and  were  content  without  inquiring  what  supported 
the  tortoise.  We  laugh  when  the  child  complacently 
answers  the  question,  What  makes  the  automobile 
go  ?  "  The  wheels."  Yet  in  the  informal  and  the 
formal  discourse  of  more  sophisticated  people  we 
frequently  discover  as  great  simplicity ;  the  removal 
of  the  mystery  one  step  is  taken  as  its  solution. 

The  assertion  that  Whittier's  poetry  shows  him  to 
have  been  an  Abolitionist,  for 

I.  His  poems  show  that  he  was  deeply  interested  in  the 
antislavery  movement. 

II.  His  poems  show  that  he  believed  that  slavery  was 
wrong  in  theory. 

III.  His  poems  show  that  he  supported  the  antislavery 
movement  as  a  practical  measure ; 

does  not  prove  that  the  main  proposition  is  true.  It 
rests  merely  upon  generalizations  that  themselves 
need  proof.  It  is  necessary  to  prove  each  of  these. 
While  the  propositions,  that 

A.  The  question  received  much  of  his  attention, 

B.  The  question  received  his  enduring  interest, 

C.  The  question  received  his  heart-felt  interest, 

offer  a  sufficiently  broad  base  for  proof  that  Whittier 
was  deeply  interested,  they  do  not  penetrate  deeply 


112  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

enough.  Each  in  turn  will  have  to  be  sustained  by 
evidence.  This  process  must  be  carried  on  till  the 
proposition  rests  on  facts  or  on  accepted  principles. 
Until  such  a  foundation  is  reached  we  have  not  proof, 
but  mere  assertion.  The  evidence  we  offer  needs 
evidence.  We  must  not  stop  before  we  have  dis- 
covered the  support  of  the  tortoise. 

There  must,  then,  be  enough  piers  to  the  bridge  of 
argument,  and  they  must  be  grounded  on  the  bed 
rock  of  facts.  Further,  these  piers  must  be  of  suffi- 
cient height  and  strength.  The  proposition  that  is 
the  subject  of  discussion  may  not  rest  immediately 
on  the  ultimate  evidence.  The  intermediate  steps 
must  be  taken.  One  may  not  argue  that  Whittier's 
poems  show  him  to  have  been  an  Abolitionist,  for  he 
wrote  in  his  poems  :  and  proceed  to  quote  antislavery 
sentiments  from  Whittier's  poetry.  The  work  of 
arguing  includes  the  sifting  of  evidence  and  its  inter- 
pretation. It  is  the  business  of  the  arguer  to  show 
the  significance  and  the  bearing  of  the  facts  he  cites, 
to  build  up  a  high  enough  pile  of  consecutive  argu- 
ment between  the  facts  and  the  proposition,  without 
any  flaw,  or  break,  or  twist.  Often  when  confronted 
with  the  facts  that  ultimately  prove  a  proposition,  we 
are  as  blind  to  their  import  as  was  Legrand's  friend 
in  the  following  instance  :  — 

"  Upon  persevering  in  the  experiment,  there  became  visible 
at  the  corner  of  the  slip,  diagonally  opposite  to  the  spot  in 


THE   PROOF  113 

which  the  death's-head  was  delineated,  the  figure  of  what  I 
at  first  supposed  to  be  a  goat.  A  closer  scrutiny,  however, 
satisfied  me  that  it  was  intended  for  a  kid. 

" '  Ha  !  ha  ! '  said  I,  '  to  be  sure  I  have  no  right  to  laugh 
at  you,  —  a  million  and  a  half  of  money  is  too  serious  a  mat- 
ter for  mirth,  —  but  you  are  not  about  to  establish  a  third 
link  in  your  chain  :  you  will  not  find  any  especial  connection 
between  your  pirates  and  a  goat ;  pirates,  you  know,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  goats ;  they  appertain  to  the  farming 
interest.' 

" '  But  I  have  just  said  that  the  figure  was  not  that  of  a 
goat.' 

" '  Well,  a  kid,  then  —  pretty  much  the  same  thing.' 

" '  Pretty  much,  but  not  altogether,'  said  Legrand.  '  You 
may  have  heard  of  one  Captain  Kidd.'  I  at  once  looked  on 
the  figure  of  the  animal  as  a  kind  of  punning  or  hieroglyph- 
ical  signature.  I  say  signature ;  because  its  position  upon 
the  vellum  suggested  the  idea."  —  POE:  The  Gold  Bug. 

Be  sure  in  drawing  a  brief  to  have  enough  lines  of 
argument,  to  establish  each  firmly,  and  to  see  that 
there  is  no  missing  link  in  the  chain  of  reasoning. 

This  teaching,  if  closely  followed  without  discrimi- 
nation, may  lead  the  student  into  error.  Those  who 
are  anxious  to  meet  the  requirements  of  argument 
rather  than  to  prove  a  point,  often  assiduously  strive 
merely  to  cover  the  ground,  to  leave  nothing  without 
giving  acceptable  evidence  of  it.  The  result  is  sure 
to  be  ineffective.  All  parts  of  the  argument  should 
not,  as  a  rule,  be  developed  with  uniform  elaborate- 
ness. What  is  obvious  or  unessential  does  not  have 

ARGUMENTATION  —  8 


114  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

to  be  proved  with  the  care  that  must  be  given  to 
the  less  apparent  and  the  more  important  points. 

In  the  example  already  cited,  one  could  not  prove 
Whittier  to  have  been  an  Abolitionist  without  prov- 
ing him  to  have  supported  abolition  as  a  practical 
measure.  But  elaborately  to  prove  propositions  I  and 
II,  that  he  was  interested  in  and  sympathized  with 
the  antislavery  movement,  would  be  folly,  since  propo- 
sition III  implies  I  and  II.  A  man's  interest  and 
sympathy  in  a  measure  he  supports  will  usually  be 
granted  without  much  argument.  His  support  to  the 
movement  is  the  main  point,  and  there  the  stress  of 
the  argument  should  rest. 

Emphasis  and  proportion  are  as  important  to  the 
success  of  an  argument  as  thoroughness. 

EXERCISES 

i.  Tell  why  the  following  enthymemes  are  not  con- 
vincing :  — 

a.  Enoch  Arden  is  a  beautiful  poem,  for  Tennyson  wrote  it. 

b.  Dickens  was  a  greater  novelist  than  Thackeray,  for  his 
novels  are  more  interesting. 

c.  He  is  an  educated  man,  because  he  is  well  informed. 

d.  Death  in  the  Desert  is  a  more  profound  poem  than 
Saul,  for  Death  in  the  Desert  was  written  when  Browning 
was  older. 

e.  He  is  a  Democrat,  for  he   spoke  with  admiration  of 
Grover  Cleveland. 

/.  Washington  was  not  so  great  a  benefactor  to  his  coun- 
try as  Jefferson,  for  he  was  not  a  statesman. 


THE   PROOF  115 

g.  It  must  have  been  about  ten  o'clock,  for  the  sun  was 
just  beginning  to  shine  into  the  west  windows. 

h.  If  the  war  is  a  long  one,  the  Russians  will  win,  for  they 
have  more  endurance  than  the  Japanese. 

/.  As  one  of  the  most  severe  critics  in  town  is  pleased 
with  the  statue,  every  one  will  like  it. 

_/'.  The  Salvation  Army  is  more  deserving  of  support  than 
the  churches,  for  it  does  more  good. 

k.  The  book  can  have  no  merit,  for  its  author  was  an 
immoral  man. 

2.  What  is  the  proposition  to  be  proved  in  the  following 
speech  ?     Is  it  proved  ?     If  not,  why  not  ? 

"If  there  be  any  in  this  assembly,  any  dear  friend  of 
Caesar's,  to  him  I  say  that  Brutus'  love  to  Caesar  was 
no  less  than  his.  If  then  that  friend  demand  why  Brutus 
rose  against  Csesar,  this  is  my  answer :  —  Not  that  I  loved 
Cssar  less,  but  that  I  loved  Rome  more.  Had  you  rather 
Caesar  were  living,  and  die  all  slaves,  than  that  Caesar  were 
dead,  to  live  all  free  men?  As  Caesar  loved  me,  I  weep  for 
him ;  as  he  was  fortunate,  I  rejoice  at  it ;  as  he  was  valiant, 
I  honor  him  :  but,  as  he  was  ambitious,  I  slew  him.  There 
is  tears  for  his  love ;  joy  for  his  fortune  ;  honor  for  his 
valor;  and  death  for  his  ambition.  Who  is  here  so  base 
that  would  be  a  bondman?  If  any,  speak;  for  him  have 
I  offended.  Who  is  here  so  rude  that  would  not  be  a 
Roman?  If  any,  speak;  for  him  have  I  offended.  Who 
is  here  so  vile  that  will  not  love  his  country?  If  any, 
speak ;  for  him  have  I  offended."  —  SHAKESPEARE  :  Julius 
Casar. 

3.  Consider  the  following  as  material  for  an  argument  on 
the  thesis,  Russia  should  not  pay  the  indemnity  asked  by 


Il6  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

Japan.    Put  the  argument  into  brief  form.     What  is  its 
weakness  ?     What  is  the  proposition  it  proves  ? 

WHY  THE  CZAR  REFUSES  TO  PAY 

PORTSMOUTH,  N.  H.,  August  18. 

"  Mr.  de  Martens,  one  of  the  Russian  delegates  and  rec- 
ognized as  one  of  the  great  authorities  on  international  law, 
not  only  in  Russia,  but  throughout  the  world,  in  speaking 
about  the  principle  of  the  war  indemnity,  said  that  there  was 
no  precedent  in  history  where  a  country  whose  territory  was 
not  occupied  in  whole  or  in  part  by  the  enemy,  had  paid  war 
tribute  upon  the  conclusion  of  peace. 

"  Russia,  Mr.  de  Martens  said,  was  not  crushed.  She  was 
not  on  her  knees  begging  for  peace.  She  wanted  peace,  but 
she  could  go  on  fighting  for  years.  Japan  had  not  even 
approached  the  true  Russian  frontier. 

" '  Should  Russia  consent  to  pay  tribute  to  Japan  in  any 
form,'  continued  the  eminent  jurist,  'it  would  be  her  politi- 
cal death.  The  powers  would  understand  that  she  accepted 
the  proposition  of  President  Roosevelt,  not  because  she  was 
desirous  of  an  honorable  peace,  but  because  her  power  had 
been  annihilated  and  she  recognized  that  it  was  impossible 
for  her  to  continue  the  war.  It  would  mean  a  public  con- 
fession that  Russia  is  at  Portsmouth  helplessly  kneeling  before 
Japan,  imploring  peace  and  ready  to  accept  any  terms  im- 
posed. No  one  will  seriously  contend  that  the  Muscovite 
empire  is  in  any  such  position.' 

"With  many  interesting  historical  examples  Mr.  de  Martens 
proceeded  to  elaborate  his  thesis  that  no  country  ever  had 
paid  indemnity  except  when  powerless  to  confront  the  enemy 
on  the  field  of  battle  and  with  a  large  portion  of  her  territory 
in  the  enemy's  possession  as  a  hostage. 


THE   PROOF  117 

"In  1807,  he  pointed  out,  when  Napoleon  imposed  the 
peace  of  Tilsit,  French  troops  occupied  practically  all  of 
Prussia  and  the  Prussian  royal  family  had  fled  to  Russian 
soil.  France  could  dictate  terms.  She  exacted  a  war 
indemnity  of  $300,000,000  and  garrisoned  several  Prussian 
towns  with  French  troops  at  the  expense  of  Prussia  as  a 
guarantee  of  payment.  She  required  that  the  Prussian  army 
should  be  reduced  to  40,000  men. 

"  In  1 815,  when  Napoleon  was  annihilated  at  Waterloo  after 
the  famous  '  100  days,'  and  the  second  treaty  of  Paris  was 
concluded,  the  allied  powers,  occupying  Paris  as  the  Prus- 
sians did  later  in  1870,  imposed  in  addition  to  other  condi- 
tions a  war  indemnity  of  $500,000,000  to  be  paid  in  five 
years,  during  which  time  the  allied  troops  were  to  hold  a 
portion  of  French  territory.  That  sum,  however,  was  con- 
siderably reduced  by  Lord  Wellington  at  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
and  France  completed  the  payment  of  the  indemnity  in 
three  years. 

"The  largest  war  indemnity  ever  exacted  was  imposed  by 
Prince  Bismarck  upon  France  in  1870.  It  amounted  to 
$1,000,000,000.  But  Napoleon  III  had  fallen.  Gambetta 
was  powerless.  Prussia  was  at  Paris.  The  third  republic  suc- 
ceeded in  liquidating  the  indemnity  in  two  years,  while,  ac- 
cording to  the  treaty,  she  had  five  years'  time  in  which  to  pay. 

"  In  other  cases,  even  where  a  portion  of  the  territory  of 
the  fated  country  was  occupied,  no  indemnity  was  exacted, 
or  even  asked.  For  instance,  Russia,  in  1856,  although 
the  Crimean  peninsula  was  occupied  by  the  Anglo-Franco- 
Piedmontese  troops,  was  not  asked  to  pay  tribute.  Neither 
was  Austria,  in  1859,  after  having  lost  Lombardy,  nor  in 
1866,  after  having  been  beaten  by  Prussia.  Denmark,  in 
1864,  lost  Schleswig-Holstein  to  Prussia,  but  paid  nothing. 


Il8  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

"  '  A  new  precedent  was  made  by  America,'  added  Mr.  de 
Martens,  '  in  her  war  with  Spain.  Although  victorious  and 
in  a  position  to  claim  indemnity,  she  ended  the  war  on  prin- 
ciple, and  actually  paid  $20,000,000  to  the  Madrid  govern- 
ment for  the  Philippine  Islands. 

" '  But  that,'  he  remarked,  '  was,  as  the  French  say,  to 
dorer  la  pilule? 

"  Independent  of  all  these  considerations,  Mr.  de  Martens 
said,  Russia's  objection  to  the  payment  of  an  indemnity, 
no  matter  under  what  form,  comes  from  the  fact  that  in  all 
her  history  she  never  paid  a  cent  tribute  to  a  foreign  power, 
not  even  during  the  time  of  her  worst  defeats  under  Peter 
the  Great,  when  a  large  portion  of  the  country  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  invader.  In  conclusion,  he  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  to  pay  an  indemnity  to  Japan  would 
be  for  Russia  to  create  a  precedent  new  in  the  world's 
history." 

4.  Classify  the  evidence  in  the  following  and  indicate 
clearly,  .step  by  step,  how  apparently  inconsistent  facts  are 
related  to  the  proposition,  Horace  Roberts  should  have  a 
college  education :  — 

His  father  is  a  mechanic. 

His  father  earns  only  $2  a  day. 

Horace's  back  is  weak. 

He  has  an  invalid  sister. 

He  has  acted  as  his  sister's  tutor. 

His  uncle  has  influence. 

His  uncle  is  rich. 

His  uncle  is  stingy. 

His  mother  was  a  successful  school-teacher  before  she 
married. 

His  father  has  no  education. 


THE   PROOF  119 

His  father  never  keeps  a  position  long. 

Horace  led  his  class  in  high  school. 

He  was  considered  the  best  writer  in  his  class. 

Though  repeatedly  asked  to  write  for  school  papers,  he 
refused. 

He  refused  to  enter  the  interclass  debate. 

He  refused  to  run  for  class  president. 

Horace  often  worked  at  his  lessons  till  after  midnight. 

He  fainted  after  taking  his  last  examination. 

5.  What  proposition  is  proved  by  the  following  para- 
graph ?  What  broader  proposition  does  the  writer  assume 
that  he  is  establishing?  What  is  wanting  for  its  proof? 
Why  does  the  writer  content  himself  with  giving  evidence 
to  prove  only  one  of  the  two  propositions  whose  truth  is 
essential  to  the  truth  of  the  proposition  he  advocates  ? 

"  There  was  no  sort  of  selection  of  these  boys,  or  any 
others  who  were  brought  up  by  us  to  one  or  other  branch 
of  Mr.  Morris's  business.  John  Smith,  who  is  now  the  dyer 
at  Merton,  was  taken  into  the  dyeshop  because  it  was  just 
being  set  up  at  the  time  he  was  getting  too  old  to  remain 
errand  boy.  Dearie  was  put  to  the  tapestry  because  that 
business  then  wanted  an  apprentice ;  and  so  of  the  other 
two.  They  were  put  to  the  loom  because  at  the  time  we 
were  starting  this  we  were  asked  to  do  something  for  them. 
We  took  Sleath  on  that  ground  first  of  all,  and  he  introduced 
Knight.  The  same  rule  applied  to  all  others,  and  its  work- 
ing justified  Mr.  Morris's  contention  that  the  universal 
modern  system,  which  he  called  that  of  Devil  take  the  hind- 
most, is  frightfully  wasteful  of  human  intelligence.  A  few 
years  later,  when  we  were  able  to  set  up  a  third  tapestry 
loom,  we  found  a  lad  with  equal  facility,  without  selection 
of  any  kind  —  the  nephew  of  the  housekeeper  at  Merton. 


120  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

She  happened  to  tell  me,  at  the  time  we  were  getting  the 
new  loom  ready,  that  her  nephew  had  left  school  and  was 
looking  for  something  to  do."  —  J.  W.  MACKAIL  :  Life  of 
William  Morris. 

6.    The  following  propositions  are  in  the  working  order 
recommended  on  page  95.     Rearrange  in  brief  form  :  — 

Whittier's  poems  show  him  to  have  been  an  Abolitionist. 

Whittier's  poems  show  him  to  have  been  deeply  interested 
in  the  antislavery  movement. 

Whittier's  poems  show  him  to  have  believed  that  slavery 
was  wrong  and  that  emancipation  was  right  in  theory. 

Whittier's  poems  show  that   he   favored   abolition   as   a 
practical  measure. 

They  show  that  the  question  of  slavery  claimed  a  large 
share  of  his  attention. 

They  show  that  with  him  the  antislavery  question  was  an 
enduring  interest. 

They  show  that  it  was  a  heartfelt  interest. 

There  are  more  than  ninety  poems  among  the  so-called 
Antislai'ery  Poems. 

These  do  not  include  many  poems  that  sprang  from  his 
interest  in  the  question  of  slavery. 

Many  of  his  poems  on  other  subjects  contain  allusions  to 
slavery. 

They  do  not  include  Brown  of  Ossawatomie,  Ichabod,  etc. 

All  are  familiar  with   the  reference  to  slavery  in  Snow- 
Sound  in  the  characterization  of  the  schoolmaster. 

In  The  Mayflowers  we  find  :  — 

"The  Pilgrim's  wild  and  wintry  day 

Its  shadow  round  us  draws ; 
The  Mayflower  of  his  stormy  bay, 

Our  Freedom's  struggling  cause,"  etc. 


THE   PROOF  121 

In  The  Last  Walk  in  Autumn  Whittier  declares  his 
preference  for  — 

"  The  painted,  shingly  town-house  where 
The  freeman's  vote  for  Freedom  falls  !  " 

and  says :  — 

"  I  have  not  seen,  I  may  not  see, 

My  hopes  for  man  take  form  in  fact, 
But  God  will  give  the  victory 

In  due  time ;  in  that  faith  I  act." 

In  The  Prisoners  of  Naples  he  says  :  — 

"  I,  who  have  spoken  for  freedom  at  the  cost 
Of  some  weak  friendships,  or  some  paltry  prize 
Of  name  or  place,"  etc. 

In  What  the  Voice  Said  we  find  :  — 

"  With  the  brute  the  man  is  sold,"  etc. 

In  Astraa,  After  Election,  Our  Country,  The  Ship- 
builders, The  Reformer,  and  many  other  poems  there  are 
references  made  to  slavery  in  America. 

They  show  that  in  the  early  days  of  the  antislavery  move- 
ment he  took  an  interest  in  the  question. 

They  show  that  when  troubled  times  came  his  interest  did 
not  abate. 

They  show  that  after  emancipation  was  accomplished  he 
retained  his  interest. 

In  1832  he  addressed  a  poem  to  Garrison  declaring  his 
admiration  for  him  and  interest  in  his  work. 

Some  of  his  most  notable  antislavery  poetry  was  written 
before  the  Mexican  War. 

Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  Moral  Warfare,  The  Farewell 
of  a  Virginia  Slave  Mother,  Massachusetts  to  Virginia,  To 


122  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Faneuil  Hall,  Texas :  Voice  of  New  England,  and  others, 
belong  to  this  period. 

The  significant  episodes  during  the  stormy  times  of  the 
antislavery  struggle  called  forth  verses  from  Whittier. 

Calhoun's  opposition  to  the  acquisition  of  Oregon  was 
marked  by  To  a  Southern  Statesman. 

Randolph's  death  furnished  occasion  for  pointing  a  moral 
in  Randolph  of  Roanoke. 

The  significance  of  the  treaty  with  Mexico  was  emphasized 
by  The  Crisis. 

The  attempts  to  carry  out  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  and 
their  results  gave  occasion  for  such  poems  as  A  Sabbath  Scene, 
Moloch  in  State  Street,  The  Rendition,  Arisen  at  Last. 

The  squatter  sovereignty  struggles  gave  opportunity  for 
The  Kansas  Emigrants,  The  Burial  of  Barber,  Le  Marat's 
du  Cygne. 

The  apostasy  of  Webster  stirred  Whittier  to  write 
Ichabod. 

The  execution  of  John  Brown  called  forth  the  poem, 
Brown  of  Ossawatomie. 

"  Ein  Feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott,"  The  Battb  Autumn  of 
1862,  Barbara  Frietchie,  etc.,  are  familiar  war  poems. 

He  celebrated  the  emancipation  proclamation  with  The 
Proclamation. 

He  celebrated  the  passage  of  the  emancipation  amend- 
ment with  Laus  Deo  ! 

After  the  war  he  wrote  The  Peace  Autumn,  The  Thirty- 
Ninth  Congress,  To  the  Emancipation  Group,  Garrison. 

Most  of  the  antislavery  poems  are  serious. 

Many  of  the  antislavery  poems  show  strong  emotion. 

Such  poems  as  A  Letter,  Letter  from  a  Missionary, 
The  Hunters  of  Men,  etc.,  are  the  exception. 


THE  PROOF  123 

Even  these  have  a  certain  grimness  in  their  humor. 
The  sarcasm  of  The  Hunters  of  Men  is  not  mirth-provoking. 
Such  poems  as  Expostulation,  Clerical  Oppressors,  The 
Sentence  of  John  L.  Brown,    To  Faneuil  Hall,  Ichabod, 
express  righteous  indignation. 

The  Farewell  of  a  Virginia  Slave  Mother  shows  sympathy 
and  tenderness. 

"  Ein  Feste  Burg  "  expresses  firm  patience  in  suffering. 
Laus  Deo  !  expresses  solemn  joy. 

Whittier's  antislavery  poems  are  frequently  in  the  form  of 
hymns  or  invocations. 

Whittier's  antislavery  poems  are  full  of  appeals  to  patri- 
otic and  religious  sentiment. 

Hymn  :  O  Thou,  whose  ^resence  went  Before,  Clerical 
Oppressors,  Hymn :  O  Holy  Father !  just  and  true,  Lines 
from  a  Letter  to  a  Young  Clerical  Friend,  Thy  Will  be 
Done,  etc.,  etc.,  are  altogether  addressed  to  Deity. 

Almost  every  one  of  the  antislavery  poems  contains  some 
reference  to  Deity. 

Allusions  to  the  delivery  of  the  children  of  Israel  are 
frequent.  We  find  :  — 

"The storm  .  .  .  which  wasted  Egypt's  earth." — Stanzas. 
"  The  songs  of  grateful  millions  rise 

Like  that  of  Israel's  ransomed  band."  —  The  New  Year. 
"...  the  mystic  rod, 

Of  old  stretched  o'er  the  Egyptian  wave. 
Which  opened  in  the  strength  of  God, 

A  pathway  for  the  slave." —  The  Relic. 
"  Sing  with  Miriam  by  the  sea, 
He  has  cast  the  mighty  down ; 
Horse  and  rider  sink  and  drown ; 
He  hath  triumphed  gloriously  !  "  —  Laus  Deof 


124  PROVING   THE  PROPOSITION 

Whittier's  antislavery  poems  show  that   he   disapproved 
of  slavery  in  the  abstract. 

They  show  that  he  had  personal  sympathy  for  the  negro 
slaves. 

They  show  that  he  looked  upon  negro  slavery  as  injurious 
to  the  slaveholder. 

He  looked  upon  slavery  as  morally  wrong. 
He  opposed  slavery  in  all  ages  and  places. 
He   regarded   the   negro  as  "  brother-  man,  and  fellow- 
countryman." 

He  was  sensible  to  the  horrors  of  slavery  to  the  slave. 
Such  passages  as  the  following  are  common  in  his  anti- 
slavery  poetry :  — 

"  What,  ho  !  our  countrymen  in  chains  ! 

The  whip  on  woman's  shrinking  flesh  ! 
Our  soil  yet  reddening  with  the  stains 

Caught  from  her  scourging,  warm  and  fresh  ! 
What !  mothers  from  their  children  riven  ! 

What !  God's  own  image  bought  and  sold  ! 
Americans  to  market  driven, 

And  bartered  as  the  brute  for  gold."  —  Stanzas. 
In  The  Peace  of  Europe  Whittier  denounces  tyranny  and 
slavery,  however  disguised. 

In  To  Pius  IX  he  denounces  tyranny  in  the  church. 
In  The  New  Exodus  he  rejoices  over  the  report  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  Egypt. 

In  Freedom  in  Brazil  he  rejoices  over  the  liberation  of 
slaves. 

The  Farewell  of  a  Virginia  Slave  Mother,  The  Song  of 
Slaves  in  the  Desert,  and  other  poems  mentioning  the  suffering 
of  the  slave,  show  that  sympathy  and  imagination,  as  well  as 
reason,  were  responsible  for  Whittier's  opposition  to  slavery. 


THE   PROOF  125 

He  put  himself  in  their  place. 

He  said  to  the  Virginia  slaveholders  :  — 

"  Plant,  if  ye  will,  your  fathers'  graves  with  rankest 
weeds  of  shame." 

Again,  to  the  slaveholder  he  says  :  — 
"  And  the  curse  of  unpaid  toil, 
Downward  through  your  generous  soil 
Like  a  fire  shall  burn  and  spoil,"  etc. 

He  saw  that  it  brutalized  the  southern  women. 

He  saw  that  it  made  the  churchmen  traitors  to  their  trust. 

Whittier's  poems  show  that  he  approved  the  abolitionist 
leaders  and  their  measures. 

They  show  him  to  have  been  identified  with  the  movement. 

They  show  that  he  thought  abolition  should  be  gained  at 
any  price. 

Whittier  shows  his  admiration  for  the  friends  of  freedom 
in  Garrison,  To  the  Memory  of  Thomas  Shipley,  Ritner,  The 
Branded  Hand,  Daniel  Ne all,  The  Lost  Statesman,  To  John 
C.  Fremont,  etc.,  etc. 

Many  of  Whittier's  occasional  poems,  together  with  the 
occasion  that  called  them  forth,  have  been  already  named. 

The  publication  of  poems  of  this  nature  committed  their 
author  to  the  cause  he  advocated. 

Some  of  the  poems  show  Whittier  to  have  taken  part  in 
specific  abolition  measures. 

Many  of  the  poems  were  intended  to  excite  sympathy  and 
rouse  to  action. 

Pennsylvania  Hall  was  written  for  the  dedication  of  the 
hall  of  that  name  to  the  cause  of  freedom. 

They  show  that,  patriot  though  he  was,  he  thought  disunion 
not  too  great  a  price  to  pay  for  deliverance  from  a  share  in 
the  responsibility  of  slaveholding. 


126  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

They  show  that,  Quaker  though  he  was,  he  thought  war 
was  not  too  great  a  price  to  pay  for  freedom. 

They  show  that  he  thought  that  existing  evils  could  be 
stopped  through  abolition. 

In  Texas:  Voice  of  New  England  he  wrote  :  — 

"  Take  your  slavery-blackened  vales ; 
Leave  us  but  our  own  free  gales, 
Blowing  on  our  thousand  sails. 

Boldly,  or  with  treacherous  art, 
Strike  the  blood-wrought  chain  apart ; 
Break  the  Union's  mighty  heart." 

In  A  Word  for  the  Hour  he  wrote  : — 

"They  break  the  links  of  Union : 

****** 
Draw  we  not  even  now  a  freer  breath, 
As  from  our  shoulders  falls  a  load  of  death. 
****** 
Why  take  we  up  the  accursed  thing  again? 
Pity,  forgive,  but  urge  them  back  no  more 
Who,  drunk  with  passion,  flaunt  disunion's  rag 
With  its  vile  reptile-blazon.     Let  us  press 
The  golden  cluster  on  our  brave  old  flag 
In  closer  union,  and,  if  numbering  less, 
Brighter  shall  shine  the  stars  that  still  remain." 

In  To  Faneuil  Hall  he  wrote  :  — 

"  Have  they  wronged  us  ?     Let  us  then 

Render  back  nor  threats  nor  prayers ; 
Have  they  chained  our  free-born  men? 
Let  us  unchain  theirs  ! 


THE   PROOF  127 

Up,  your  banner  leads  the  van, 

Blazoned,  « Liberty  for  all  1 ' 
Finish  what  your  sires  began  ! 

Up,  to  Faneuil  Hall !  " 

While  war  was  in  progress,  in  1862,  he  wrote :  — 
"  Not  as  we  hoped ;  but  what  are  we  ? 

Above  our  broken  dreams  and  plans 
God  lays,  with  wiser  hand  than  man's 
The  corner-stones  of  liberty. 
I  cavil  not  with  Him  :  the  voice 

That  freedom's  blessed  gospel  tells 
Is  sweet  to  me  as  silver  bells, 
Rejoicing  !  yea,  I  will  rejoice  !  " 

—  Astrcea  at  the  Capitol 

In  Em  Feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott  he  wrote  :  — 
"What  gives  the  wheat-field  blades  of  steel? 

What  points  the  rebel  cannon? 
What  sets  the  roaring  rabble's  heel 

On  the  old  star-spangled  pennon? 
What  breaks  the  oath 
Of  the  men  o'  the  South? 
What  whets  the  knife 
For  the  Union's  life  ?  — 
Hark  to  the  answer  :  Slavery  ! 
****** 
In  vain  the  bells  of  war  shall  ring 

Of  triumphs  and  revenges, 
While  still  is  spared  the  evil  thing 
That  severs  and  estranges." 

7.    Point  out  the  virtues  and  the  defects  in  the  brief  into 
which  you  have  organized  the  proposition  given  above. 


128  PROVING    THE   PROPOSITION 


THE  KIND  OF  EVIDENCE 

Where  it  is  important  to  impress  the  reader  with 
the  truth  of  a  proposition,  it  is  well  not  to  depend  on 
one  line  of  argument,  however  strong  that  may  seem. 
Give  the  proposition  manifold  proof.  Let  one  argu- 
ment reenforce  another.  Make  assurance  doubly 
sure.  Not  to  weary  the  reader  with  repetition,  have 
recourse  to  arguments  of  various  kinds. 

We  may  offer  as  evidence  facts  gained  from  our  own 
experience  or  observation,  or  from  the  observation  of 
others ;  or  we  may  offer  opinions  or  inferences,  our 
own  opinions  grounded  on  our  own  observations  or 
on  the  observations  or  the  opinions  of  others,  or  the 
opinions  of  others  grounded  on  their  own  observations 
or  on  the  observations  or  the  opinions  of  others. 

We  usually  trust  the  evidence  of  our  own  senses, 
but  even  that  is  not  absolutely  reliable :  the  eye  or 
the  ear  reports  the  appearance  rather  than  the  fact ; 
if  you  whirl  a  burning  stick,  you  see  what  appears  to 
be  an  unbroken  ring  of  fire ;  the  white  cow  may  look 
purple  in  a  certain  light;  the  skiff  seems  repeated 
in  the  clear  water;  the  answering  call  is  but  an 
echo ;  appearances  often  deceive.  And  again  we  see 
not  what  really  appears  but  what  we  expect  to  see 
—  fevered  fancy  converts  the  white-trunked  sycamore 
into  a  ghost  for  Ichabod  Crane — yet  on  the  whole 
we  trust  our  senses. 


THE    PROOF  129 

Furthermore,  we  are  constantly  making  inferences 
and  acting  upon  them  with  confidence  ;  yet  they  are 
by  no  means  infallible.  We  hourly  make  use  of  the 
a  priori  argument;  that  is,  the  argument  that  some- 
thing will  happen  because  something  has  happened, 
that  it  will  rain  because  the  clouds  have  gathered, 
that  it  will  thunder  because  it  has  lightened,  that 
there  will  be  a  good  harvest  because  the  blossoms 
are  abundant,  that  I  shall  find  Romola  interesting 
because  I  have  found  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  inter- 
esting. 

We  as  frequently  use  the  a  posteriori  argument, 
that  something  must  have  happened  because  some- 
thing else  has  happened  since,  that  it  was  cold  last 
night  because  the  lake  is  frozen,  that  the  soil  is  rich 
because  the  corn  flourishes,  that  there  is  a  fire  be- 
cause there  is  smoke ;  Crusoe's  argument  that  a  man 
had  been  on  his  island  because  there  was  a  man's 
footprint  in  the  sand,  was  of  this  kind. 

We  also  put  our  faith  in  argument  by  analogy  or 
likeness ;  we  see  a  silent,  ponderous  man  and  we  say, 
"  Still  waters  run  deep,"  and  expect  great  things  of 
him ;  when  a  friend  consults  us  about  making  an- 
other change  in  business,  we  look  dubious  and  say, 
"  A  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss."  The  student 
says,  "a  brief  only  hinders  me  in  writing,"  and  the 
instructor  replies,  "  David  learned  to  wear  the  armor 
of  Saul." 

ARGUMENTATION  —  9 


130  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

Inferences  are  nevertheless  not  sure ;  all  signs  fail 
in  dry  weather ;  the  bloom  may  be  blighted ;  the 
light  that  promises  the  wanderer  welcome  may  prove 
a  will-o'-the-wisp ;  a  man  may  smile  and  smile  and 
be  a  villain. 

Various  inferences  are  frequently  drawn  from  the 
same  facts.  An  amusing  instance  of  this  recently 
occurred  in  a  western  town :  — 

In  the  stone  work  over  the  door  of  an  apartment  house 
that  was  being  erected  on  a  prominent  street  appeared  the 
word  Coredjo.  Immediately  a  citizen  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
public  through  an  evening  paper,  calling  attention  to  the  name 
of  the  house  and  commenting  that  it  was  strange  that  a  man 
of  sufficient  culture  to  care  for  the  art  of  Correggio  should  be 
so  ignorant  as  to  blunder  so  conspicuously  in  the  spelling  of 
his  name.  This  man's  reasoning  was,  All  men  who  spell 
Correggio,  Coredjo,  are  ignorant  of  how  it  should  be  spelled. 

This  man  spelled  Correggio,  Coredjo. 

This  man  is  ignorant  of  how  it  should  be  spelled. 

The  next  night  a  second  letter  was  published,  referring  to 
the  first  letter  and  asserting  that  this  was  evidently  not  a  case 
of  ignorance,  but  a  virulent  case  of  spelling  reform  mania, 
and  regretting  that  a  man  who  had  sufficient  sentiment  to 
wish  to  pay  tribute  to  an  artist  by  naming  a  house  for  him 
should  have  so  little  right  reverence  for  him  as  to  take  such 
vulgar  liberties  with  his  name.  This  writer  made  it  clear 
that  the  major  premise  of  the  first  reasoner  was  not  reliable 
by  showing  that  all  men  who  misspelled  Correggio  were  not 
necessarily  ignorant  of  the  conventional  spelling.  He  would 
substitute  as  the  major  premise  of  his  syllogism,  All  men 
who  deliberately  spell  Correggio,  Coredjo,  are  spelling  re- 


THE   PROOF  131 

form  maniacs.  At  last  a  letter  from  the  builder  of  the 
house  appeared,  showing  that  it  was  the  minor  premise  that 
was  at  fault ;  he  was  not  a  man  who  spelled  Correggio, 
Coredjo ;  he  did  not  know  of  the  existence  of  Correggio  ; 
the  name  of  his  house  was  a  word  made  up  of  the  first  sylla- 
bles of  the  names  of  his  three  children.  The  two  letter 
writers  had  made  the  same  blunder :  they  had  generalized 
that  all  men  who  employ  a  combination  of  letters  that  gives 
the  pronunciation  of  Correggio's  name  intend  his  name  —  a 
blunder  that  most  of  us  would  have  made. 

The  evidence  of  our  own  senses,  and  our  own  in- 
ferences from  our  own  observations,  are  usually  the 
most  convincing  proof  to  us.  But,  however  much  we 
trust  our  own  senses  and  power  to  make  correct  in- 
ferences, we  often  rightly  yield  to  the  judgment  of 
another.  The  child  accepts  its  father's  assurance 
that  the  trees  and  the  fences  are  not  rushing  past 
the  train  windows ;  the  man  crossing  the  desert 
trusts  the  guide's  wisdom  when  the  latter  tells  him  the 
inviting  palms  he  so  plainly  sees  are  but  a  mirage ; 
we  give  up  our  own  theories  and  yield  to  the  doctor's 
verdict.  Where  one  is  by  nature  or  training  a  more 
trustworthy  observer  or  reasoner  than  his  fellows, 
we  often  accept  his  opinion  without  question,  even 
when  it  conflicts  with  our  own.  But  even  where  the 
authority  is  recognized  and  admitted  to  be  most  com- 
petent, the  active  mind  demands  grounds  for  the 
conclusion  suggested ;  it  refuses  to  hold  an  opinion 
merely  because  some  one  else  holds  it. 


132  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

The  argument  by  authority  is  not  so  convincing 
and  conclusive  as  most  young  writers  seem  to  think. 
Many  seem  to  hold  the  conviction  that  whatever  ap- 
pears in  print  is,  ipso  facto,  true,  and  such  students 
offer  quoted  opinions  as  sufficient  evidence  of  a 
proposition  that  needs  proof.  Quotation  marks  alone 
do  not  give  weight  to  an  assertion.  The  reader  must 
know  whose  opinion  is  offered  that  he  may  decide 
whether  or  not  he  is  entitled  to  speak  with  authority. 
We  are  not  always  able  to  take  at  its  full  value  the 
testimony  of  one  to  whose  personal  advantage  it 
would  be  to  have  the  belief  he  advocates  prevail. 
We  find  it  necessary  to  discount  the  opinion  of  the 
prejudiced.  The  woolen  manufacturer's  assurance 
that  the  prices  on  woolen  goods  are  reasonably  low 
is  not  going  to  be  accepted  by  the  farmer  without 
supporting  statistics.  The  mine  operator's  opinion 
that  immigration  should  not  be  restricted,  the  capital- 
ist's conviction  that  the  closed  shop  is  a  social  evil, 
are  supposed  a  little  to  savor  of  the  logic  of  the 
wolf  who  complained  that  the  lamb  was  muddling 
the  water. 

The  authority  cited  must  not  only  be  disinterested, 
it  must  be  competent  to  pronounce  upon  the  subject 
under  discussion.  Certain  authorities  are  conceded 
by  some  to  be  almost  incontestable,  as  the  Century 
Dictionary  is  to  many  in  matters  of  pronunciation, 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  in  matters  of 


THE   PROOF  133 

legislation,  the  Bible  in  matters  religious.  The  opin- 
ion of  a  distinguished  specialist  has  weight  as  evi- 
dence. While,  then,  the  conclusion  without  the  name 
of  the  person  holding  it  avails  little  or  nothing  as  evi- 
dence, the  reminder  that  several  eminent  authorities 
sustain  you  in  your  opinion  has  weight. 

It  is,  however,  more  effective  for  the  sake  of  con- 
vincing the  reader  not  merely  to  give  the  conclusion, 
but  to  tell  the  facts  or  the  reasons  upon  which  the 
conclusion  is  based.  Macaulay  might  have  planned 
his  paragraph  on  the  bad  roads  of  England  thus  :  — 

I.  The  roads  in  England  were  at  this  time  in  bad  condi- 
tion, for 

A.  They  are  so  reported  by  Thoresby  in  his  Diary. 

B.  They  are  so  reported  by  Pepys  in  his  Diary. 

But  he  chose  to  fill  out  A  and  B  with  a  recital  of  the 
specific  instances  upon  which  the  conclusion  was 
based,  as  follows  :  — 

"  Those  highways  appear  to  have  been  far  worse  than  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  degree  of  wealth  and  civiliza- 
tion which  the  nation  had  even  then  attained.  On  the  best 
lines  of  communication  the  ruts  were  deep,  the  descents 
precipitous,  and  the  way  often  such  as  it  was  hardly  possi- 
ble to  distinguish,  in  the  dusk,  from  the  uninclosed  heath 
and  fen  which  lay  on  both  sides.  Ralph  Thoresby,  the  anti- 
quary, was  in  danger  of  losing  his  way  on  the  great  North 
road,  between  Barnby  Moor  and  Tuxford,  and  actually  lost 
his  way  between  Doncaster  and  York.1  Pepys  and  his  wife, 
1  Thoresby's  Diary,  Oct.  21,  1680,  Aug.  3,  1712. 


134  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

traveling  in  their  own  coach,  lost  their  way  between  Newbury 
and  Reading.  In  the  course  of  the  same  tour  they  lost 
their  way  near  Salisbury,  and  were  in  danger  of  having  to 
pass  the  night  on  the  plain.1  It  was  only  in  fine  weather 
that  the  whole  breadth  of  the  road  was  available  for  wheeled 
vehicles.  Often  the  mud  lay  deep  on  the  right  and  the  left ; 
and  only  a  narrow  track  of  firm  ground  rose  above  the  quag- 
mire.2 At  such  times  obstructions  and  quarrels  were  fre- 
quent, and  the  path  was  sometimes  blocked  up  during  a  long 
time  by  carriers,  neither  of  whom  would  break  the  way.  It 
happened,  almost  every  day,  that  coaches  stuck  fast,  until  a 
team  of  cattle  could  be  procured  from  some  neighboring 
farm,  to  tug  them  out  of  the  slough.  But  in  bad  seasons 
the  traveler  had  to  encounter  inconveniences  still  more 
serious.  Thoresby,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  traveling  be- 
tween Leeds  and  the  capital,  has  recorded  in  his  Diary  such 
a  series  of  perils  and  disasters  as  might  suffice  for  a  journey  to 
the  Frozen  Ocean  or  to  the  Desert  of  Sahara.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  learned  that  the  floods  were  out  between  Ware  and 
London,  that  passengers  had  to  swim  for  their  lives,  and  that 
a  higgler  had  perished  in  the  attempt  to  cross.  In  conse- 
quence of  these  tidings  he  turned  out  of  the  highroad,  and 
was  conducted  across  some  meadows,  where  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  ride  to  the  saddle  skirts  in  water.3  In  the  course 
of  another  journey  he  narrowly  escaped  being  swept  away 
by  an  inundation  of  the  Trent.  He  was  afterwards  detained 
at  Stamford  four  days  on  account  of  the  state  of  the  roads, 
and  then  ventured  to  proceed  only  because  fourteen  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons,  who  were  going  up  in  a 

1  Pepys's  Diary,  June  12  and  1 6,  1 668. 

2  Ibid.,  Feb.  28,  1660. 

3  Thoresby's  Diary,  May  17,  1695. 


THE   PROOF  135 

body  to  Parliament  with  guides  and  numerous  attendants, 
took  him  into  their  company.1 " 

—  MACAULAY  :  History  of  England. 

Had  Miss  Puffer,  in  The  Psychology  of  Beauty,  told 
us  that  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  Eckhart,  St.  Teresa, 
Keats,  and  Schopenhauer  testified  to  "  the  fading  of 
consciousness  of  self  as  feeling  nears  the  white  heat," 
the  reader  familiar  with  the  utterances  of  those  named 
would  have  demanded  nothing  more,  but  even  he  is 
glad  to  have  his  memory  further  aided  by  such  a  pas- 
sage as:  — 

"...  in  all  the  stages  of  religious  ecstasy,  aesthetic  pleas- 
ure, and  creative  inspiration,  is  to  be  traced  what  we  know  as 
the  loss  of  the  feeling  of  self.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  dwells 
on  '  that  ecstasy  of  deification  in  which  the  individual  dis- 
appears in  the  eternal  essence  as  the  drop  of  water  in  a 
cask  of  wine.'  Says  Meister  Eckhart,  'Thou  shalt  sink 
away  from  thy  selfhood,  thou  shalt  flow  into  his  self-posses- 
sion, the  very  thought  of  Thine  shall  melt  into  His  Mine ' ; 
and  St.  Teresa, '  The  soul,  in  thus  searching  for  its  God,  feels 
with  a  very  lively  and  very  sweet  pleasure  that  it  is  fainting  al- 
most quite  away,'  "  etc.  —  PUFFER  :  The  Psychology  of  Beauty. 

If  the  witness  cited  is  not  widely  known,  it  is  well 
to  give  his  full  name  and  in  addition  to  give  some 
reason  why  he  should  be  regarded  as  reliable. 

To  be  sure,  in  using  the  argument  of  authority  it 
is  not  always  necessary  or  wise,  besides  naming  the 
authorities,  to  give  their  grounds  for  belief  and  the 

1  Thoresby's  Diary,  Dec.  27,  1708. 


136  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

grounds  for  accepting  their  judgment;  if  the  argu- 
ment of  authority  is  used  merely  to  reenforce  strong 
evidence  of  other  sorts,  it  is  enough  to  name  distin- 
guished specialists  who  support  the  view  you  advocate. 

As  yet  we  have  comparatively  little  use  for  the 
argument  of  authority ;  but  even  later,  when  we  are 
depending  less  on  our  own  experience,  the  argument 
of  authority  should  ordinarily  not  be  the  sole  support 
of  an  important  proposition. 

Not  only  is  it  sometimes  well  to  add  to  the  argu- 
ment of  probable  cause  or  reason,  the  argument  of 
analogy,  and  to  that  the  argument  of  example,  and  to 
that  the  argument  of  authority,  it  is  also  effective 
to  multiply  each  of  these  arguments  —  to  give  sev- 
eral reasons,  more  than  one  comparison,  a  convinc- 
ing number  of  examples,  an  imposing  array  of 
authorities. 

Let  us  consider  the  development  of  a  possible  sub- 
proposition  III  under  the  proposition,  The  pleasures 
of  moderate  poverty  are  greater  than  the  pleasures  of 
wealth. 

III.  Treats  give  the  moderately  poor  more  pleas- 
ure than  the  rich,  for 

A.    It  is  natural  that  this  should  be  so,  for 
I.   The  treats  of  the  poor  are  in  themselves 

better  suited  to  give  pleasure,  for 
a.   They  are  chosen  with  greater  care 
(evidence  ?). 


THE   PROOF  137 

b.    They  are  chosen  with  greater  sincer- 
ity (evidence  ?). 

2.  The  moderately  poor  are  themselves  in 

better   condition  to  derive   pleasure 
from  a  treat,  for  (evidence  ?). 

3.  It  is  in  accord  with  a  universal  human 

tendency,  for 

a.  The  cobbler's  children  go  without 

shoes. 

b.  The  hunter  cares  not  for  easy  game. 

c.  The  candy  maker  does   not   relish 

sweets. 

B.  Experience  shows  that  they  do,  for 

1.  When  my  means  were  more  limited  I 

took  greater  pleasure  in  a  play. 

2.  I  took  greater  pleasure  in  a  trip. 

3.  I  took  greater  pleasure  in  a  gift. 

4.  I  took  greater  pleasure  in  a  purchase, 

etc. 

C.  Others  testify  that  it  is  so,  for 

1.  Mrs.  A,  who  was  poor  in  her  girlhood 

and  is  now  rich,  says  that  it  is  so. 

2.  Mrs.  B,  who  was  rich  in  her  girlhood 

and  is  now  poor,  says  it  is  true,  etc. 

In  thus  piling  up  evidence  to  prove  a  proposition 

the  student  should  bear  in  mind  that  his  object   is 

emphasis,  and  he  should  take  care  not  to  use  this 

device  to  such  excess  as  to  defeat   his  end.      It   is 


138  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

advisable  to  omit  questionable  or  weak  evidence ;  it 
is  often  advisable  to  omit  even  evidence  that  is  strong. 
In  selecting  evidence  with  a  view  to  emphasis,  the 
value  of  suggestiveness  should  not  be  lost  sight  of. 
One  or  two  illustrations  or  examples  that  appeal  to 
the  reader's  experience  and  set  him  to  calling  up  evi- 
dence on  your  side  out  of  his  own  past  will  do  more 
to  convince  him  than  a  large  number  of  most  con- 
scientiously elaborated  instances  presented  by  you. 
The  more  varied  the  evidence  the  more  certain  may 
you  be  of  gaining  the  interested  collaboration  of  many 
of  your  readers. 

EXERCISES 

i.  Give  the  proposition  to  be  proved  in  each  of  the 
following  selections ;  classify  the  argument  and  tell  in  what 
respect  it  is  weak  or  strong  :  — 

a.  "  Is  it  so  bad,  then,  to  be  misunderstood?     Pythagoras 
was  misunderstood,  and  Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Luther,  and 
Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and  Newton,  and  every  pure  and 
wise  spirit  that  ever  took  flesh.     To  be  great  is  to  be  mis- 
understood." —  EMERSON  :  Self-reliance. 

b.  "  If  life  is  not  always  poetical,  it  is  at  least  metrical. 
Periodicity  rules  over  the  mental  experience  of  man,  accord- 
ing to  the  path  of  the  orbit  of  his  thoughts.     Distances  are 
not  gauged,  ellipses  not  measured,  velocities  not  ascertained, 
times  not   known.     Nevertheless,   the   recurrence  is   sure. 
What  the  mind  suffered  last  week,  or  last  year,  it  does  not 
suffer  now,  but  it  will  suffer  again  next  week  or  next  year. 
Happiness  is  not  a  matter  of  events ;   it  depends  upon  the 


THE   PROOF  139 

tides  of  the  mind.  Disease  is  metrical,  closing  in  at  shorter 
and  shorter  periods  towards  death,  sweeping  abroad  at 
longer  and  longer  intervals  towards  recovery.  Sorrow  for 
one  cause  was  intolerable  yesterday,  and  will  be  intolerable 
to-morrow ;  to-day  it  is  easy  to  bear,  but  the  cause  has  not 
passed.  Even  the  burden  of  a  spiritual  distress  unsolved 
is  bound  to  leave  the  heart  to  a  temporary  peace  :  and  re- 
morse itself  does  not  remain  —  it  returns.  Gayety  takes  us 
by  a  dear  surprise."  —  ALICE  MEYNELL:  The  Rhythm  of 
Life. 

c.  "  I  believe  that  natural  history  has  lost  much  by  the 
vague  general  treatment  that  is  so  common  —  what  satisfac- 
tion would  be  derived  from  a  ten-page  sketch  of  the  habits 
and  customs  of  man?     How  much  more  profitable  it  would 
be  to  devote  that  space  to  the  life  of  some  one  great  man. 
This  is  the   principle    I   have  endeavored  to  apply  to  my 
animals.     The   real   personality  of  the   individual   and  his 
view  of  life  are  my  theme,  rather  than  the  ways  of  the  race 
in  general,  as  viewed  by  a  casual  and  hostile  human  eye." — 
ERNEST  THOMPSON  SETON  :    Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known. 

d.  "  Besides  —  Grotius  and  Lauterbach,  and  Puffendorff, 
and  Titius,  and  many  wise  men  beside,  who  have  considered 
the  matter  properly,  have  determined,  that  the  property  of 
a  country  can  not  be  acquired  by  hunting,  cutting  wood,  or 
drawing  water  in  it  —  nothing  but  precise  demarcation  of 
limits,  and  the   intention  of  cultivation,  can  establish  the 
possession.     Now  as  the  savages  [Indians]  (probably  from 
never  having  read  the  authors  above  quoted)  had  never  com- 
plied with  any  of  these  necessary  forms,  it  plainly  follows 
that  they   had  no  right  to  the  soil."  —  IRVING  :    Knicker- 
bocker History  of  New  York. 

e.  "  The  Mahometans  regard  their  Koran  with  a  reverence 


140  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

which  few  Christians  pay  even  to  their  Bible.  It  is  admitted 
everywhere  as  the  standard  of  all  law  and  all  practice ;  the 
thing  to  be  gone  upon  in  speculation  and  life  :  the  message 
sent  direct  out  of  Heaven,  which  this  Earth  has  to  conform 
to,  and  walk  by,  the  thing  to  be  read.  Their  Judges  decide 
by  it ;  all  Moslems  are  bound  to  study  it,  seek  in  it  for  the 
light  of  their  life.  They  have  mosques  where  it  is  all  read 
daily ;  thirty  relays  of  priests  take  it  up  in  succession,  get 
through  the  whole  each  day.  There,  for  twelve  hundred 
years,  has  the  voice  of  this  Book,  at  all  moments,  kept 
sounding  through  the  ears  and  the  hearts  of  so  many  men." 
—  CARLYLE  :  Heroes  and  Hero-worship. 

f.  " '  But  it  is  so  charming  to  swim  on  the  water  ! '  said 
the  Duckling,  '  so  refreshing  to  let  it  close  above  one's  head, 
and  to  dive  down  to  the  bottom.' 

" '  Yes,  that  must  be  a  mighty  pleasure,  truly,'  quoth  the 
Hen.  '  I  fancy  you  must  have  gone  crazy.  Ask  the  Cat 
about  it  —  he's  the  cleverest  animal  I  know  —  ask  him  if 
he  likes  to  swim  on  the  water,  or  to  dive  down.  I  won't 
speak  about  myself.  Ask  our  mistress,  the  old  woman ;  no 
one  in  the  world  is  cleverer  than  she.  Do  you  think  she 
has  any  desire  to  swim,  and  to  let  the  water  close  above  her 
head?  ' "  — ANDERSEN  :  The  Ugly  Duckling. 

g.  "  Caesar  had  his  Brutus,  Charles  I  his  Cromwell,  and 
George    III  —  may   profit   by  their   example."  —  PATRICK 
HENRY. 

h.  "The  candles  sputtered,  and  the  hot  fat  fell  on  the 
shavings  below.  '  Dangerous  way  of  lighting  a  room  full  of 
shavings,'  said  some  one.  The  landlord  looked  up  at  the 
swinging  candelabra  and  laughed.  '  Tried  it  pretty  often,'  he 
said.  '  Never  burned  a  house  down  yet.'  "  —  H.  H.  JACKSON. 

i.   "The  murderers  did  escape  from  one  of  these  win- 


THE   PROOF  141 

dows.  This  being  so,  they  could  not  have  refastened  the 
sashes  from  the  inside,  as  they  were  found  fastened.  .  .  . 
Yet  the  sashes  were  fastened.  They  must,  then,  have  the 
power  of  fastening  themselves.  There  was  no  escape  from 
this  conclusion.  I  stepped  to  the  unobstructed  casement, 
withdrew  the  nail  with  some  difficulty,  and  attempted  to 
raise  the  sash.  It  resisted  all  my  efforts  as  I  had  antici- 
pated. A  concealed  spring  must,  I  now  knew,  exist;  and 
this  corroboration  of  my  idea  convinced  me  that  my  prem- 
ises, at  least,  were  correct,  however  mysterious  still  appeared 
the  circumstances  attending  the  nails.  A  careful  search  soon 
brought  to  light  the  hidden  spring.  I  pressed  it,  and,  satis- 
fied with  the  discovery,  forbore  to  upraise  the  sash. 

"  I  now  replaced  the  nail  and  regarded  it  attentively.  A 
person  passing  out  through  the  window  might  have  reclosed 
it,  and  the  spring  would  have  caught ;  but  the  nail  could 
not  have  been  replaced.  The  conclusion  was  plain,  and 
again  narrowed  in  the  field  of  my  investigations.  The 
assassins  must  have  escaped  through  the  other  window. 
Supposing,  then,  the  springs  upon  each  sash  to  be  the  same, 
as  was  probable,  there  must  be  found  a  difference  between 
the  nails,  or  at  least  between  the  modes  of  their  fixture. 
Getting  upon  the  sacking  of  the  bedstead,  I  looked  over  the 
head-board  minutely  at  the  second  casement.  Passing  my 
hand  down  behind  the  board,  I  readily  discovered  and 
pressed  the  spring,  which  was,  as  I  had  supposed,  identical 
in  character  with  its  neighbor.  I  now  looked  at  the  nail. 
It  was  as  stout  as  the  other,  and  apparently  fitted  in  the 
same  manner,  driven  in  nearly  up  to  the  head.  ...  It  had, 
I  say,  in  every  respect  the  appearance  of  its  fellow  in  the 
other  window  ;  but  this  fact  was  an  absolute  nullity,  conclu- 
sive as  it  might  seem  to  be,  when  compared  with  the  consid- 


142  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

eration  that  here,  at  this  point,  terminated  the  clue.  '  There 
must  be  something  wrong,'  I  said,  'about  the  nail.'  I 
touched  it,  and  the  head,  with  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  of 
the  shank,  came  off  in  my  fingers.  The  rest  of  the  shank 
was  in  the  gimlet-hole,  where  it  had  been  broken  off.  The 
fracture  was  an  old  one  (for  its  edges  were  incrusted  with 
rust),  and  had  apparently  been  accomplished  by  the  blow 
of  a  hammer,  which  had  partially  imbedded,  in  the  top  of 
the  bottom  sash,  the  head  portion  of  the  nail.  I  now  care- 
fully replaced  this  head  portion  in  the  indentation  whence  I 
had  taken  it,  and  the  resemblance  to  a  perfect  nail  was  com- 
plete—  the  fissure  was  invisible.  Pressing  the  spring,  I 
gently  raised  the  sash  for  a  few  inches ;  the  head  went  up 
with  it,  remaining  firm  in  its  bed.  I  closed  the  window,  and 
the  semblance  of  the  whole  nail  was  again  perfect. 

"  The  riddle,  so  far,  was  now  unriddled.  The  assassin  had 
escaped  through  the  window  which  looked  upon  the  bed. 
Dropping  of  its  own  accord  upon  his  exit  (or  perhaps  pur- 
posely closed),  it  had  become  fastened  by  the  spring;  and 
it  was  the  retention  of  this  spring  which  had  been  mistaken 
by  the  police  for  that  of  the  nail, — further  inquiry  being  thus 
considered  unnecessary."  —  POE  :  The  Murders  in  the  Rue 
Morgue. 

/.  "  There  was  once  a  little  animal, 

No  bigger  than  a  fox, 
And  on  five  toes  he  scampered 

Over  Tertiary  rocks. 
They  called  him  Eohippus, 

And  they  called  him  very  small, 
And  they  thought  him  of  no  value  — 

When  they  thought  of  him  at  all ; 


THE   PROOF  143 

"  Said  the  little  Eohippus, 

'  I  am  going  to  be  a  horse  ! 
And  on  my  middle  finger  nails 

To  run  my  earthly  course  ! 
I'm  going  to  have  a  flowing  tail ! 

I'm  going  to  have  a  mane  ! 
I'm  going  to  stand  fourteen  hands  high 

On  the  psychozoic  plain  ! ' 

"  The  Coryphodon  was  horrified, 

The  Dinoceras  was  shocked  ; 
And  they  chased  young  Eohippus, 

But  he  skipped  away  and  mocked. 
Then  they  laughed  enormous  laughter, 

And  they  groaned  enormous  groans, 
And  they  bade  young  Eohippus 

Go  view  his  father's  bones. 
Said  they,  '  You  always  were  as  small 

And  mean  as  now  we  see, 
And  that's  conclusive  evidence 

That  you're  always  going  to  be. 
What !  be  a  great,  tall,  handsome  beast 

With  hoofs  to  gallop  on  ? 
Why  !  you'd  have  to  change  your  nature  / ' 

Said  the  Loxolophodon. 
They  considered  him  disposed  of, 

And  retired  with  gait  serene ; 
That  was  the  way  they  argued 

In  'the  early  Eocene.'  " 

—  C.  P.  STETSON  :  In  This  Our  World. 

k.   " '  But  we  shall  live  to  see  the  day,  I  trust,'  went  on  the 
artist, '  when  no  man  shall  build  his  house  for  posterity.     Why 


144  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

should  he?  He  might  just  as  reasonably  order  a  dura- 
ble suit  of  clothes,  —  leather,  or  gutta-percha,  or  what- 
ever else  lasts  longest,  —  so  that  his  great-grandchildren 
should  have  the  benefit  of  them,  and  cut  precisely  the  same 
figure  in  the  world  that  he  himself  does.'  "  —  HAWTHORNE  : 
The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables. 

/.   "  Fal.   What  is  the  gross  sum  that  I  owe  thee  ? 

"Host.  Marry,  if  thou  wert  an  honest  man,  thyself  and  the 
money  too.  Thou  didst  swear  to  me  upon  a  parcel-gilt  gob- 
let, sitting  in  my  Dolphin-chamber,  at  the  round  table,  by  a 
sea-coal  fire,  upon  Wednesday  in  Wheeson  week,  when  the 
prince  broke  thy  head  for  liking  his  father  to  a  singing-man 
of  Windsor,  thou  didst  swear  to  me  then,  as  I  was  washing 
thy  wound,  to  marry  me  and  make  me  my  lady  thy  wife. 
Canst  thou  deny  it  ?  Did  not  goodwife  Keech,  the  butcher's 
wife,  come  in  then  and  call  me  gossip  Quickly?  coming  in 
to  borrow  a  mess  of  vinegar ;  telling  us  she  had  a  good  dish 
of  prawns ;  whereby  thou  didst  desire  to  eat  some ;  whereby 
I  told  thee  they  were  ill  for  a  green  wound?  And  didst 
thou  not,  when  she  was  gone  downstairs,  desire  me  to  be  no 
more  so  familiarity  with  such  poor  people;  saying  that  ere 
long  they  should  call  me  madam  ?  And  didst  thou  not  kiss 
me  and  bid  me  fetch  thee  thirty  shillings  ?  I  put  thee  now 
to  thy  book-oath  :  deny  it,  if  thou  canst." 

—  SHAKESPEARE  :  2  King  Henry  IV. 

2.  In  the  following  passage,  what  kinds  of  evidence  are 
in  conflict  and  which  seems  to  you  the  more  convincing? 

"  '  I'm  a  very  poor  man,  sir.' 

" '  I  am  sorry  to  hear  it,  Mr.  Barkis.' 

"  *  A  very  poor  man,  indeed  I  am,'  said  Mr.  Barkis. 

"  Here  his  right  hand  came  slowly  and  feebly  from  under 
the  bedclothes,  and  with  a  purposeless,  uncertain  grasp  took 


THE   PROOF  145 

hold  of  a  stick  which  was  loosely  tied  to  the  side  of  the  bed. 
After  some  poking  about  with  this  instrument,  in  the  course 
of  which  his  face  assumed  a  variety  of  distracted  expressions, 
Mr.  Barkis  poked  it  against  a  box,  an  end  of  which  had 
been  visible  to  me  all  the  time.  Then  his  face  became 
composed. 

" '  Old  clothes,'  said  Mr.  Barkis. 

"  '  Oh  ! '  said  I. 

"  '  I  wish  it  was  money,  sir,'  said  Mr.  Barkis. 

" '  I  wish  it  was,  indeed,'  said  I. 

" '  But  it  airitj  said  Mr.  Barkis,  opening  both  his  eyes  as 
wide  as  he  possibly  could."  —  DICKENS  :  David  Copperfield. 

3.  What  is  the  proposition  to  be  proved  in  the  following 
excerpt  and  what  kinds  of  evidence  are  used  to  prove  it  ? 
Put  material  in  form  of  a  brief. 

"Where,  as  is  often  the  case  on  the  sea- board  or  in 
the  glaciated  districts  of  the  interior  of  this  country,  the 
trench  of  the  roadway  is  bottomed  in  soft  sand,  some  hard- 
ening of  the  surface  is  necessary,  else  the  roller  will  churn 
the  sand  and  broken  stone  together,  until  the  mixture, 
which  has  no  value  whatever  in  the  road  structure,  has 
absorbed,  it  may  be,  half  of  the  materials  reckoned  on  for 
the  hardened  way.  To  hold  the  stone  and  the  sand  apart 
it  has  been  the  usual  practice  to  cover  the  sand  with  a  layer 
of  pebbles  of  conveniently  large  size  before  the  bottom  layer 
of  broken  stone  was  laid  down.  This  is  an  expedient  which 
is  often  costly  and  sometimes  impracticable  from  lack  of  fit 
materials.  An  experimental  inquiry  into  the  conditions  of 
the  movement  of  sand  under  pressure  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  an  arrangement  which  would  prevent  the  sand  from 
mingling  with  the  stones,  for  the  brief  time  required  for  the 

ARGUMENTATION  —  IO 


146  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

passage  of  the  roller  in  its  first  traverses  over  the  road, 
would  attain  the  desired  end.  It  is  not  at  all  needful 
that  the  partition  should  be  enduring,  for  as  soon  as  the 
lower  layer  of  stones  has  been  forced  into  contact,  and  has 
become  bound  together,  there  is  no  further  danger  of  the 
mingling  of  the  bits  with  the  sand ;  thus  the  speedy  decay 
of  the  fabric  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence.  As  the  result  oi 
careful  tests  made  by  Mr.  Charles  Mills,  the  chief  engineer 
of  the  Massachusetts  Highway  Commission,  and  with  the 
assistance  of  Mr.  W.  P.  McClintock,  the  engineer  member 
of  the  board,  it  appeared  that  ordinary  cotton  cloth  of  the 
cheapest  quality,  such  as  goes  under  the  name  of  cheese- 
cloth, if  spread  upon  the  sand  after  the  road  is  shaped  to 
receive  the  broken  stone,  will  serve  to  keep  the  stone  and 
sand  from  churning  together.  This  method  was  carefully 
tried  in  macadamizing  the  state  road  between  Cottage  City 
and  Edgartown,  Massachusetts.  The  cloth  was  spread  in 
strips  lengthwise  of  the  way ;  the  stone  for  the  bottom  layer 
was  shoveled  from  the  sides  upon  it  with  no  unusual  care. 
When  the  roller  came  to  be  used  it  was  found  that  the  stone 
acted  essentially  as  if  it  was  on  an  ordinary  firm  foundation  ; 
it  at  once  united  with  the  usual  number  of  passages  of  the 
roller  over  it.  At  the  present  price  of  cotton,  cheese-cloth 
can  be  had  in  large  quantities  at  a  cost  of  about  three  cents 
per  square  yard  on  the  road.  This  for  a  hardened  way  fif- 
teen feet  in  width  amounts  to  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  per  mile,  which  is  often  much  less  than  the  cost  of 
any  other  effective  means  of  attaining  the  object,  and  may 
be  less  than  one  third  that  due  to  the  loss  of  the  broken 
stone  which  would  occur  if  it  were  allowed  to  come  directly 
in  contact  with  the  sand.  A  section  through  such  a  "  petti- 
coat road,"  as  it  has  been  termed,  shows  that  the  stones  do 


THE   PROOF  147 

not  tear  through  the  cloth.  It  is  indeed  probable  that 
material  of  even  slighter  texture  and  of  much  less  cost 
would  serve.  Various  kinds  of  strong  paper  were  tried  but 
found  worthless."  —  N.  S.  SHALER:  American  Highways. 

4.  Bring  to  class  a  good  example  from  literature  of  a  priori 
reasoning,  a  posteriori  reasoning,  the  argument  of  analogy, 
the  argument  of  authority. 

5.  Reduce  to  brief  form  the  following  argument  and  ex- 
pand the  derived  brief :  — 

"  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  the  women  are  the  real  support- 
ers of  the  ideal  endeavors :  in  not  a  few  fields,  their  influence 
is  the  decisive  one ;  in  all  fields,  this  influence  is  felt,  and 
the  whole  system  tends  ever  more  and  more  to  push  the 
men  out  and  the  women  in.  Theatre  managers  claim  that 
eighty-five  per  cent  of  their  patrons  are  women.  No  one  can 
doubt  that  the  same  percentage  would  hold  for  those  who 
attend  art  exhibitions,  and  even  for  those  who  read  maga- 
zines and  literary  works  in  general.  And  we  might  as  well 
continue  with  the  same  arbitrary  figure  :  can  we  deny  that 
there  are  about  eighty-five  per  cent  of  women  among  those 
who  attend  public  lectures,  or  who  go  to  concerts,  among 
those  who  look  after  public  charities  and  the  work  of  the 
churches  ?  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  been  in  a  Ger- 
man art  exhibition  where  at  least  half  of  those  present  were 
not  men,  but  I  do  remember  art  exhibitions  in  Boston,  New 
York,  and  Chicago  where,  according  to  my  actual  count,  the 
men  in  the  hall  were  less  than  five  per  cent  of  those  present. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  the  patron  determines  the  direction 
which  the  development  will  take.  As  the  political  reader  is 
more  responsible  for  the  yellow  press  than  is  the  editor,  so 
all  the  non-political  functions  of  public  life  must  slowly  take, 


148  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

under  these  conditions,  the  stamp  of  the  feminine  taste  and 
type,  which  must  have  again  the  further  effect  of  repelling 
man  from  it  more  and  more.  The  result  is  an  effemination 
of  the  higher  culture."  —  MUNSTERBERG  :  American  Traits. 

REFUTATION 

So  far  we  have  considered  only  the  building  up  of 
an  argument,  but  when  one  argues,  one  must  take 
account  of  objections  that  have  been  expressed  or  that 
are  likely  to  arise  in  the  reader's  or  hearer's  mind,  and 
tear  down  such  counter  arguments.  The  overthrow 
of  opposing  arguments  is  called  refutation. 

It  is  not  always  necessary  to  overthrow  all  oppos- 
ing arguments.  It  is  conceivable  that,  conceding 
some  contentions  against  your  view  to  have  weight, 
the  argument  you  can  make  to  support  a  theory, 
though  not  perfect,  is  still  strong  enough  to  convince 
you.  Your  audience  is  probably  as  open  to  convic- 
tion as  you  are.  Certainly  the  frank  admission  of  a 
doubt  would  count  less  against  your  cause  with  any 
intelligent  hearer  than  a  specious  argument  or  a 
"bluff." 

Indeed  it  must  often  be  the  case  that  a  true  searcher 
after  truth  will  communicate  to  others  his  hypothesis 
for  the  very  reason  that  it  has  a  flaw  in  it.  He  will 
wish  to  make  clear  his  reasoning  so  far  as  he  has 
gone  in  order  to  make  others  interested  in  working 
out  the  unsolved  point.  The  flaw  he  makes  the 


THE   PROOF  149 

raison  d'etre  for  the  argument.  It  is  said  that  it  was 
through  explaining  to  Mrs.  Greene  the  imperfection 
of  his  cotton  gin  that  Whitney  got  the  suggestion  for 
the  brushes  that  made  it  effective.  We  should  not 
ignore  nor  pretend  to  overthrow  objections  that  we 
can  not  refute. 

Not  only  should  we  attempt  to  refute  only  what  we 
can  honestly  refute;  it  is  not  necessary  always  to 
refute  all  that  we  can  refute.  The  strong  debater 
will  not  be  betrayed  into  a  vain  display  of  cleverness 
in  uncovering  the  fallacies  of  his  opponent  if  they  are 
unimportant ;  he  will  resist  the  temptation  to  hold  his 
opponent  up  to  scorn  by  riddling  his  argument  un- 
necessarily. If  he  is  actuated  by  an  impersonal 
desire  to  prove  his  proposition,  he  will  select  for 
refutation  only  those  points  which  he  can  honestly 
refute,  and  of  those  only  the  ones  that,  unrefuted,  will 
seriously  impair  the  validity  of  his  argument. 

In  studying  how  to  build  up  an  argument  we  make 
the  best  possible  preparation  for  refutation.  If  we 
understand  the  difficulties  and  pitfalls  in  the  process 
of  constructing  an  argument,  we  know  where  to  look 
for  the  weak  points  in  an  antagonist's  argument ; 
on  the  other  hand,  all  that  we  learn  about  detecting 
fallacies  in  the  arguments  of  our  opponents  should 
help  us  guard  against  their  occurrence  in  our  own 
reasoning. 

We  have  learned  in  previous  chapters  that  we  must 


150  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

have  a  care  to  make  the  basis  of  evidence  broad 
enough,  that  the  argument  must  be  based  on  prin- 
ciples or  facts,  that  there  must  be  sequence  in  the 
argument,  and  that  the  argument  of  authority  is  sub- 
ject to  certain  restrictions.  It  is  neglect  to  conform 
with  these  requirements  that  gives  rise  to  fallacies. 

In  the  first  place,  see  that  the  argument  rests  on  a 
broad  enough  base.  Is  the  implied  middle  term 
accurate,  and  the  implied  major  premise  in  conse- 
quence tenable  ?  Is  there  no  illicit  assumption  ? 
This  is  one  of  the  most  common  errors.  The  youth 
who  came  to  my  door  and  urged,  "  You  should  sub- 
scribe for  this  paper,  for  I  am  trying  to  earn  my  way 
through  college  and  your  subscription  will  help  me 
along,"  made  this  error.  Vainly  he  proved  that  he 
was  a  college  student  and  intended  to  use  the  money 
for  his  education  ;  vainly  he  proved  that  my  sub- 
scription would  help  him  pay  his  expenses ;  vainly 
he  proved  the  laudability  of  his  aim,  so  long  as  he  took 
for  granted  my  approval  of  his  method.  In  testing 
an  argument  discover  the  implied  major  premise  and 
see  if  it  is  tenable. 

This  error  often  results  from  the  use  in  the  brief  of 
compound  or  complex  propositions  and  the  proof  of  the 
last  member  only.  The  following  is  a  case  in  point :  — 

We  should  have  an  endowed  theatre,  for 
It  would  abolish  the  "  long  run,"  which  is  one  of  the  ob- 
jectionable features  of  the  present  system,  for 


THE   PROOF  151 

The  long  run  tends  to  produce  mechanical  acting,  for,  etc. 

The  writer  in  such  a  case  proceeds  to  establish 
beyond  question  the  fact  that  the  "  long  run "  is 
objectionable  and  counts  his  work  done,  forgetting 
that  he  has  not  proved  the  main  point,  that  the  new 
system  will  obviate  the  difficulty.  This  is  a  frequent 
blunder.  It  is  often  more  glaring,  as  :  — 

It  would  abolish  the  long  run  which  is  fatal  to  good  acting 
and  which  now  prevails,  for 

The  long  run  is  now  customary  when  a  company  is  mak- 
ing a  long  stay  in  one  city,  for  (evidence) 

The  long  run  is  now  the  custom  when  a  company  is  tour- 
ing the  country,  for,  etc. 

Here  the  writer  ignores  both  the  proposition  that 
the  endowment  will  work  a  change,  and  the  proposi- 
tion that  the  long  run  is  objectionable. 

In  the  second  place,  one  should  see  that  the  proof 
rests  on  facts.  Facts  offered  to  prove  a  point  are 
sometimes  in  themselves  contradictory.  A  student 
asserted  in  a  brief  that  54  per  cent  of  the  voters  in 
Massachusetts  were  native  born  and  84  per  cent  of 
the  voters  in  Massachusetts  were  foreign  born.  As 
100  per  cent  represents  all  the  voters  in  Massachu- 
setts, it  was  not  necessary  to  consult  statistics  to 
prove  these  figures  erroneous.  The  student  who 
stated  that  of  59,250  prisoners  one  in  every  938  was 
native  born  and  one  in  every  518  was  foreign  born, 


152  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

provoked  the  spontaneous  inquiry,  "Pray,  what  are 
the  rest  ? " 

Common  sense  applied  is  often  all  that  is  needed 
to  show  that  a  statement  can  not  be  true.  The  claim 
of  a  student  arguing  about  orphan  asylums,  that  two 
hundred  and  fifty  out  of  every  thousand  persons  in 
New  York  State  were  homeless  children,  would  not 
be  credited  by  any  one  who  stopped  to  think  that  that 
would  mean  about  a  third  of  the  juvenile  population 
of  the  state,  if  we  allow  one  fourth  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  state  to  be  adults,  and  that  to  house  so  many 
children,  orphan  asylums  must  be  as  numerous  as 
schoolhouses. 

It  is  sometimes  possible  to  point  out  that  the  evi- 
dence offered  to  support  one  proposition  disproves 
another,  as  in  the  following  case  :  — 

"  Towns.    Forsooth,  a  blind  man  at  Saint  Alban's  shrine, 
Within  this  half-hour,  hath  received  his  sight ; 
A  man  that  ne'er  saw  in  his  life  before. 

******* 

Glou.  Let  me  see  thine  eyes  :  wink  now :  now  open  them : 
In  my  opinion  yet  thou  see'st  not  well. 

Simpcox.   Yes,  master,  clear  as  day,  I  thank   God   and 
Saint  Alban. 

Glou.   Say'st  thou  me  so  ?    What  color  is  this  cloak  of  ? 

Simp.    Red,  master ;  red  as  blood. 

Glou.   Why,  that's  well  said.    What  color  is  my  gown  of? 

Simp.    Black,  forsooth  :  coal-black  as  jet. 

King.   Why,  then,  thou  know'st  what  color  jet  is  of? 


THE   PROOF  153 

Suff.   And  yet,  I  think,  jet  did  he  never  see. 

Glou.   But  cloaks  and  gowns,  before  this  day,  a  many. 

Wife.    Never,  before  this  day,  in  all  his  life. 

Glou.   Tell  me,  sirrah,  what's  my  name  ? 

Simp.  Alas,  master,  I  know  not. 

Glou.   What's  his  name? 

Simp.   I  know  not. 

Glou.   Nor  his? 

Simp.    No,  indeed,  master. 

Glou.    What's  thine  own  name? 

Simp.    Saunder  Simpcox,  an  if  it  please  you,  master. 

Glou.  Then,  Saunder,  sit  there,  the  lyingest  knave  in 
Christendom.  If  thou  hadst  been  born  blind,  thou  mightst 
as  well  have  known  all  our  names  as  thus  to  name  the 
several  colors  we  do  wear.  Sight  may  distinguish  of  colors ; 
but  suddenly  to  nominate  them  all,  it  is  impossible."  — 
SHAKESPEARE  :  2  King  Henry  VI. 

Facts  in  themselves  true  may  be  shown  to  be  mis- 
leading by  the  revelation  of  suppressed  facts.  The 
man  who  proved  his  excellent  marksmanship  by  show- 
ing a  bullet  hole  in  the  center  of  a  small  target 
chalked  on  a  barn  door,  and  proved  that  he  shot  from 
an  old  fowling  piece  one  hundred  yards  away  to  make 
the  center  hole,  had  a  good  case  till  some  one  ex- 
plained that  the  target  was  chalked  after  the  bullet 
was  fired.  This  is  more  strictly  speaking,  however, 
a  fallacy  of  the  first  class,  where  the  unwarranted 
assumption  is  made  that  the  target  was  there  when 
the  bullet  hole  was  made. 

If  either  premise  is  overthrown,  the  conclusion  is 


154  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

invalidated.  The  following  is  a  good  illustration  of 
refutation  by  overthrowing  both  the  major  and  the 
minor  premises  in  the  implied  syllogism  :  — 

All  reformatory  measures  that  would  change  this  govern- 
ment to  a  democracy  are  measures  which  should  not  be 
enacted. 

This  is  a  reformatory  measure  that  would  change  this 
government  to  a  democracy. 

This  is  a  measure  that  should  not  be  enacted. 

"  My  honorable  friend,  the  member  for  the  University  of 
Oxford,  tells  us,  that  if  we  pass  this  law,  England  will  soon 
be  a  republic.  The  reformed  House  of  Commons  will,  ac- 
cording to  him,  before  it  has  sat  ten  years,  depose  the  king 
and  expel  the  Lords  from  their  House.  Sir,  if  my  honorable 
friend  could  prove  this,  he  would  have  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing an  argument  for  democracy  infinitely  stronger  than  any 
that  is  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Paine.  My  honorable 
friend's  proposition  is  in  fact  this  :  that  our  monarchical  and 
aristocratical  institutions  have  no  hold  on  the  public  mind 
of  England ;  that  these  institutions  are  regarded  with  aver- 
sion by  a  decided  majority  of  the  middle  class.  This,  Sir,  I 
say,  is  plainly  deducible  from  his  proposition ;  for  he  tells 
us  that  the  representatives  of  the  middle  class  will  inevitably 
abolish  royalty  and  nobility  within  ten  years ;  and  there  is 
surely  no  reason  to  think  that  the  representatives  of  the  mid- 
dle class  will  be  more  inclined  to  a  democratic  revolution 
than  their  constituents.  Now,  Sir,  if  I  were  convinced  that 
the  great  body  of  the  middle  class  in  England  look  with 
aversion  on  monarchy  and  aristocracy,  I  should  be  forced, 
much  against  my  will,  to  come  to  this  conclusion,  that  mo- 
narchical and  aristocratical  institutions  are  unsuited  to  my 


THE   PROOF  155 

country.  Monarchy  and  aristocracy,  valuable  and  useful  as 
I  think  them,  are  still  valuable  and  useful  as  means  and  not 
as  ends.  The  end  of  government  is  the  happiness  of  the 
people ;  and  I  do  not  conceive  that,  in  a  country  like  this, 
the  happiness  of  the  people  can  be  promoted  by  a  form  of 
government  in  which  the  middle  classes  place  no  confidence, 
and  which  exists  only  because  the  middle  classes  have  no 
organ  by  which  to  make  their  sentiments  known.  But,  Sir, 
I  am  fully  convinced  that  the  middle  classes  sincerely  wish 
to  uphold  the  royal  prerogatives  and  the  constitutional  rights 
of  the  peers.  What  facts  does  my  honorable  friend  produce 
in  support  of  his  opinion?  One  fact  only,  and  that  a  fact 
which  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  question.  The 
effect  of  this  reform,  he  tells  us,  would  be  to  make  the  House 
of  Commons  all  powerful.  It  was  all  powerful  once  before, 
in  the  beginning  of  1649.  Then  it  cut  off  the  head  of  the 
king,  and  abolished  the  House  of  Peers.  Therefore,  if  it 
again  has  the  supreme  power,  it  will  act  in  the  same  manner. 
Now,  Sir,  it  was  not  the  House  of  Commons  that  cut  off  the 
head  of  Charles  the  First ;  nor  was  the  House  of  Commons 
then  all  powerful.  It  had  been  greatly  reduced  in  numbers 
by  successive  expulsions.  It  was  under  the  absolute  domin- 
ion of  the  army.  A  majority  of  the  House  was  willing  to 
take  the  terms  offered  by  the  king.  The  soldiers  turned 
out  the  majority ;  and  the  minority,  not  a  sixth  part  of  the 
whole  House,  passed  those  votes  of  which  my  honorable 
friend  speaks,  votes  of  which  the  middle  classes  disapproved 
then,  and  of  which  they  disapprove  still."  —  MACAULAY  :  On 
the  Reform  Bill,  March  2,  1831. 

Where  the  truth  of  a  proposition  is  upheld  by  the 
argument  of  authority  it  may  be  overthrown  in  various 


156  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

ways :  the  citation  of  the  authority's  views  may  be 
shown  to  be  wrong ;  the  passage  or  utterance  itself 
may  be  shown  to  be  misquoted  or  quoted  out  of  con- 
text in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  liable  to  misinterpre- 
tation. This  is  done  by  citing  this  expression  of 
opinion  correctly,  or  by  citing  other  contradictory 
expressions  of  opinion.  The  authority  himself  may 
be  attacked  as  incompetent  or  prejudiced.  Or 
opposed  authorities  of  greater  weight  may  be 
cited. 

To  the  demand  for  evidence  the  arguer  may  an- 
swer, "  Here  are  facts  enough  —  I  offer  you  indispu- 
table facts."  If  what  he  says  is  true  and  still  the 
proposition  is  not  proved,  it  rests  with  you  to  show 
that  through  some  wrench  or  twist  in  the  reasoning 
the  facts  do  not  support  the  proposition ;  it  does  not 
rest  upon  them. 

This  may  happen  when  a  word  is  used  in  a  double 
sense.  The  following  extract  from  a  brief  is  an 
example  :  — 

Labor  unions  do  not   protect  their  members  from  arbi- 
trary dismissals,  for 
i.    Orders  come  without  warning  from  the  officers  of 

the  union  to  stop  work,  for 
a.   This  was  the  case  in  the  x  strike,  etc. 

However  strong  the  proof  that  strikes  have  been 
called  without  warning,  the  statement  that  the  union 
does  not  protect  the  laborer  from  arbitrary  "dis- 


THE  PROOF  157 

missal,"  in  the  sense  in  which  it  pretends  to  protect 
him,  is  not  proved. 

The  treacherous  complex  proposition  may  be  re- 
sponsible for  a  departure  from  the  main  line  of 
argument.  The  student  mistakes  what  is  accidental 
for  what  is  essential.  Suppose  the  student  arguing 
on  the  pleasures  of  poverty  had  said  instead  of  "  Mrs. 
B,  who  was  rich  and  is  now  poor,  testifies  to  this,  for 
She  says,"  etc.,  "  This  is  the  testimony  of  Mrs.  B, 
who  was  rich  and  is  now  poor,  for,"  and  had  gone  on 
to  give  evidence  of  her  former  wealth  and  her  present 
poverty  :  he  would  have  given  facts,  but  they  would 
not  be  facts  to  sustain  the  main  line  of  argument ; 
they  would  rather  be  a  dangling  incumbrance. 

The  untrained  disputant  is  easily  lured  from  the 
main  argument  to  account  for  a  general  tendency 
that  he  has  cited  as  evidence.  Thus,  instead  of  giv- 
ing facts  to  prove  the  "  long  run  "  prevalent,  the  stu- 
dent theorizes  :  — 

The  long  run  is  prevalent,  for 

1.  It  is  easier  for  the  actor,  for 

a.  There  is  less  labor  in  learning  parts. 

2.  The  actor  wants  what  is  easy,  for 

(an  argument  to  prove  that  man  is  lazy). 

3.  It  is  cheaper  for  the  manager,  for,  etc. 

4.  And  the  manager  wants  what  is  cheap,  for 

(an  argument  to  prove  that  man  is  eager  for  gain). 

The  irrelevancy  of  such  reasoning  is  easily  appre- 


158  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

ciated  when  attention  is  called  to  it,  but  a  surprising 
amount  of  it  can  pass  muster.  The  listener  is  aware 
that  something  is  being  proved  and  he  blames  himself 
that  he  can  not  follow. 

Less  common  but  more  awkward  even  than  this 
arguing  aside  from  the  issue  is  the  reasoning  in  a 
circle.  This  happens  where  the  proposition  to  be 
proved  is  used  as  evidence  to  support  itself :  Nicho- 
las Nicklcby  is  a  better  story  than  Oliver  Twist,  for 
they  were  written  at  the  same  time,  and  Dickens  was 
more  interested  in  the  former,  as  is  shown  by  its 
greater  strength. 

The  justice  of  Christ's  teachings  has  been  called 
into  question  because  of  the  Parable  of  the  Vineyard, 
but  the  teaching  of  this  parable  must  be  just,  since  it 
was  spoken  by  one  who  taught  only  what  was  just 
and  right. 

One  who  gives  a  general  statement  to  prove  a  spe- 
cific case  and  then  tries  to  prove  the  general  statement 
by  specific  cases,  whether  or  not  he  gives  the  particular 
case  he  started  to  prove,  is  virtually  committing  this 
fallacy.  Instead  of  arguing  actors  are  lazy,  for  all 
men  are  lazy,  for  lawyers  are  lazy,  and  merchants  are 
lazy,  and  ditch  diggers  are  lazy,  and  proving  each 
of  these  classes  to  be  lazy,  it  is  obvious  that  it  would 
be  more  convincing  and  more  possible  to  prove  the 
class  in  question  lazy  by  the  process  to  be  applied  to 
the  several  classes. 


THE   PROOF  159 

The  practice  of  massing  the  refutation  at  the  begin- 
ning or  the  end  of  the  brief  is  ordinarily  ineffective. 
In  general  it  seems  better  to  scatter  the  refutation 
through  the  brief,  considering  the  objections  that  may 
be  raised  against  a  proposition  in  close  connection 
with  the  positive  proof  of  that  proposition. 

The  objection  should  be  stated  in  the  brief,  and 
its  statement  should  be  followed  by  the  refutation 
introduced  by  "  yet."  "  Yet,"  it  should  be  noticed,  is 
a  coordinate  conjunction,  and  the  refutation  must 
never  be  numbered  as  if  it  were  inferior  in  rank  to 
the  point  it  refutes.  The  accepted  form  is  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

II.   He  is  not  truthful,  for 

A.   Although  he  told  the  truth  in  the  case  referred 

to, 
A1.   Yet,  that  does  not  prove  him  honest,  for 

i .    It  was  to  his  advantage  to  tell  the  truth,  for 
a.   He  was  sure  the  truth  would  be  dis- 
covered, etc. 

If  the  objections  are  strong  ones  and  are  known  to 
preoccupy  the  hearer's  mind,  it  is  best,  as  a  rule,  to 
demolish  them  before  presenting  your  positive  argu- 
ment. This  is,  however,  not  an  absolute  rule.  If 
you  have  a  convincing  and  captivating  argument  for 
a  point,  you  may  address  it  at  once  even  to  the  preju- 
diced hearer,  trusting  it  to  make  him  the  more  will- 
ing to  surrender  his  own  views  when  you  come  to 


160  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

assail  them.  If  the  objections  are  of  such  a  nature 
that  the  audience  has  to  be  helped  to  them  by  the 
speaker,  that  is,  if  the  speaker  is  guarding  against 
possible  antagonistic  after-thoughts,  rather  than  bat- 
tering down  firmly  intrenched  views,  it  is  not  best  to 
begin  with  the  statement  of  objections  and  the  refuta- 
tion of  them.  This  holds  true  for  great  or  small  sec- 
tions of  the  brief. 

EXERCISES 

i.  How  does  the  artist  refute  Nello's  objection?  What 
is  the  major  premise  of  each  ? 

"  '  Young  man,  I  am  painting  a  picture  of  Sinon  deceiving 
old  Priam,  and  I  should  be  glad  of  your  face  for  my  Sinon, 
if  you'd  give  me  a  sitting.' 

"Tito  Melema  started  and  looked  round  with  a  pale 
astonishment  in  his  face,  as  if  at  a  sudden  accusation ;  but 
Nello  left  him  no  time  to  feel  at  a  loss  for  an  answer  :  '  Piero,' 
said  the  barber,  '  thou  art  the  most  extraordinary  compound 
of  humors  and  fancies  ever  packed  into  a  human  skin. 
What  trick  wilt  thou  play  with  the  fine  visage  of  this  young 
scholar  to  make  it  suit  thy  traitor?  Ask  him  rather  to  turn 
his  eyes  upward,  and  thou  mayst  make  a  Saint  Sebastian  of 
him  that  will  draw  troops  of  devout  women ;  or,  if  thou  art 
in  a  classical  vein,  put  myrtle  about  his  curls  and  make  him 
a  young  Bacchus,  or  say  rather  a  Phoebus  Apollo,  for  his 
face  is  as  warm  and  as  bright  as  a  summer  morning ;  it  made 
me  his  friend  in  the  space  of  a  credo.1 

" '  Aye,  Nello,'  said  the  painter,  speaking  with  abrupt 
pauses,  'and  if  thy  tongue  can  leave  off  its  everlasting 
chirping  long  enough  for  thy  understanding  to  consider  the 


THE   PROOF  l6l 

matter,  thou  mayst  see  that  them  hast  just  shown  the  reason 
why  the  face  of  Messer  will  suit  my  traitor.  A  perfect  traitor 
should  have  a  face  which  vice  can  write  no  marks  on  —  lips 
that  will  lie  with  a  dimpled  smile  —  eyes  of  such  agate-like 
brightness  and  depth  that  no  infamy  can  dull  them — cheeks 
that  will  rise  from  a  murder  and  not  look  haggard.  I  say 
not  this  young  man  is  a  traitor ;  I  mean,  he  has  the  face 
that  would  make  him  the  more  perfect  traitor,  if  he  had  the 
heart  of  one,  which  is  saying  neither  more  nor  less  than  that 
he  has  a  beautiful  face,  informed  with  rich  young  blood,  that 
will  be  nourished  enough  by  food,  and  keep  its  color  without 
much  help  of  virtue.'  "  —  GEORGE  ELIOT  :  Romola. 

Would  Tito's  discomfiture  at  the  artist's  request  indicate 
that  he  is  the  "  ideal  traitor  "? 

2.  In  the  following  passage  one  hypothesis  is  offered  to 
undermine  another.  Which  is  more  convincing?  What  is 
the  major  premise  of  the  city  editor?  Of  Gallegher? 

" '  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  to  meet  him  out  walking,  right 
here  in  Philadelphia,'  said  one  of  the  staff.  '  He'll  be  dis- 
guised, of  course,  but  you  could  always  tell  him  by  the  ab- 
sence of  the  trigger  finger  on  his  right  hand.  It's  missing, 
you  know ;  shot  off  when  he  was  a  boy.' 

" '  You  want  to  look  for  a  man  dressed  like  a  tough,'  said 
the  city  editor;  '  for  as  this  fellow  is  to  all  appearances  a  gen- 
tleman, he  will  try  to  look  as  little  like  a  gentleman  as  possible.' 

"  '  No,  he  won't,'  said  Gallegher,  with  that  calm  imperti- 
nence that  made  him  dear  to  us.  '  He'll  dress  just  like  a 
gentleman.  Toughs  don't  wear  gloves,  and  you  see  he's  got 
to  wear  'em.  The  first  thing  he  thought  of  after  doing  for 
Burrbank  was  of  that  gone  finger,  and  how  he  was  to  hide 
it.  He  stuffed  the  finger  of  that  glove  with  cotton  so's  to 

ARGUMENTATION  —  1 1 


1 62  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

make  it  look  like  a  whole  finger,  and  the  first  time  he  takes 
off  that  glove  they've  got  him  —  see,  and  he  knows  it.' " 
—  RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS  :  Galleglier  and  Other  Stories. 

3.  In  the  following  fable  does  the  Ant  admit  the  Fly's 
facts?    Why  does  she  question  her  conclusion? 

"  An  Ant  and  a  Fly  one  day  disputed  as  to  their  respective 
merits.  '  Vile  creeping  insect ! '  said  the  Fly  to  the  Ant, 
'  can  you  for  a  moment  compare  yourself  with  me  ?  I  soar 
on  the  wing  like  a  bird.  I  enter  the  palaces  of  kings,  and 
alight  on  the  heads  of  princes,  nay  of  emperors,  and  only 
quit  them  to  adorn  the  yet  more  attractive  brow  of  beauty. 
Besides,  I  visit  the  altars  of  the  gods.  Not  a  sacrifice  is 
offered  but  is  first  tasted  by  me.  Every  feast,  too,  is  open  to 
me.  I  sit  and  drink  of  the  best,  instead  of  living  for  days 
on  two  or  three  grains  of  corn  as  you  do.'  'All  that's  very 
fine,'  replied  the  Ant;  'but  listen  to  me.  You  boast  of 
your  feasting,  but  you  know  that  your  diet  is  not  always  so 
choice,  and  you  are  sometimes  forced  to  eat  what  nothing 
would  induce  me  to  touch.  As  for  alighting  on  the  heads 
of  kings  and  emperors,  you  know  very  well  that  whether  you 
pitch  on  the  head  of  an  emperor  or  an  ass  (and  it  is  as  often 
on  the  one  as  the  other),  you  are  shaken  off  from  both  with 
impatience.  And,  then,  the  "  altars  of  the  gods,"  indeed  ! 
There  and  everywhere  else  you  are  looked  upon  as  nothing 
but  a  nuisance.  In  the  winter,  too,  while  I  feed  at  my  ease 
on  the  fruit  of  my  toil,  what  more  common  than  to  see  your 
friends  dying  with  cold,  hunger,  and  fatigue  ?  '  " 

4.  Write  a  paragraph  of  refutation  of  real  or   fancied 
perversion  of  facts. 

5.  The  following  excerpts  are  from  a  discussion  in  Ran- 
dall's Life  of  Jefferson,  concerning  the  drafting  of  the  Dec- 


THE   PROOF  163 

laration  of  Independence.  The  discussion  is  based  on  the 
conflicting  evidence  of  eminent  authorities.  The  passages 
cited  refer  directly  to  the  particular  statements  of  the  two 
men  on  the  sjubject  in  question.  Does  there  seem  to  be 
misquotation  of  any  kind  on  the  part  of  either  disputant? 
Where?  Suggest  broader  lines  of  argument  for  establishing 
the  weight  of  probability  on  one  side  or  the  other :  — 

John  Adams  to  Timothy  Pickering  — 1822. 

"The  Committee  met,  discussed  the  subject,  and  then  ap- 
pointed Mr.  Jefferson  and  me  to  make  the  draft,  I  suppose 
because  we  were  the  two  first  on  the  list.  The  sub-com- 
mittee met.  Jefferson  proposed  to  me  to  make  the  draft. 
I  said, '  I  will  not.'  « You  should  do  it.'  '  Oh  !  no.'  '  Why 
will  you  not  ?  You  ought  to  do  it.'  '  I  will  not.'  *  Why  ?  ' 
'  Reasons  enough.'  '  What  can  be  your  reasons  ?  '  '  Reason 
first  —  you  are  a  Virginian,  and  a  Virginian  ought  to  appear 
at  the  head  of  this  business.  Reason  second  —  I  am  obnox- 
ious, suspected,  and  unpopular.  You  are  very  much  other- 
wise. Reason  third  —  you  can  write  ten  times  better  than  I 
can.'  *  Well,'  said  Jefferson,  '  if  you  are  decided,  I  will  do 
as  well  as  I  can.'  '  Very  well.  When  you  have  drawn  it  up, 
we  will  have  a  meeting.'  A  meeting  we  accordingly  had, 
and  conned  the  paper  over.  ...  I  consented  to  report  it, 
and  do  not  now  remember  that  I  made  or  suggested  a  single 
alteration.  We  reported  it  to  the  Committee  of  five.  It 
was  read,  and  /  do  not  remember  that  Franklin  or  Sherman 
criticised  anything.  We  were  all  in  haste.  Congress  was 
impatient,  and  the  instrument  was  reported,  as  I  believe,  in 
Jefferson's  handwriting,  as  he  first  drew  //." 

Jefferson  to  Madison  —  August 30,  1823. 

"  Mr.  Adams's  memory  has  led  him  into  an  unquestionable 


164  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

error.  At  the  age  of  eighty-eight,  and  forty-seven  years 
after  the  transactions  of  Independence,  this  is  not  wonderful. 
Nor  should  I,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  on  the  small  advantage  of 
that  difference  only,  venture  to  oppose  my  memory  to  his, 
were  it  not  supported  by  written  notes,  taken  by  myself  at 
the  moment  and  on  the  spot.  [After  giving  the  substance  of 
Mr.  Adams's  statement,  he  continues :]  Now  these  details 
are  quite  incorrect.  The  Committee  of  five  met ;  no  such 
thing  as  a  sub-committee  was  proposed,  but  they  unani- 
mously pressed  on  myself  alone  to  undertake  the  draft.  I 
consented  ;  I  drew  it ;  but  before  I  reported  it  to  the  Com- 
mittee, I  communicated  it  separately  to  Dr.  Franklin 
and  Mr.  Adams,  requesting  their  corrections,  because  they 
were  the  two  members  of  whose  judgments  and  amendments 
I  wished  most  to  have  the  benefit,  before  presenting  it  to 
the  Committee  :  and  you  have  seen  the  original  paper  now 
in  my  hands,  with  the  corrections  of  Dr.  Franklin  and  Mr. 
Adams  interlined  in  their  own  handwritings.  Their  altera- 
tions were  two  or  three  only,  and  merely  verbal.  I  then 
wrote  a  fair  copy,  reported  it  to  the  Committee,  and  from 
them,  unaltered,  to  Congress.  This  personal  communication 
and  consultation  with  Mr.  Adams  he  has  misremembered 
into  the  actings  of  a  sub-committee." —  H.  S.  RANDALL  :  Life 
of  Jefferson. 

"  After  mentioning  that  Mr.  Jefferson  attributed  his  grand- 
father's error,  in  the  matter  just  considered,  to  the  '  failing 
memory  of  eighty-eight,  the  assumed  age  of  Mr.  Adams  at 
the  time'  (a  lamentable  'assumption,'  as  we  believe  Mr. 
Adams  lacked  two  or  three  months  of  that  age  !),  Mr.  Charles 
F.  Adams  continues  :  '  Perceiving  also  the  awkward  nature 
of  the  charge  made  by  one  —  himself  —  having,  at  the  mo- 
ment, nearly  attained  fourscore,  Mr.  Jefferson  disclaims  all 


THE   PROOF  165 

reliance  upon  his  recollection,  and  appeals  to  the  unequivo- 
cal authority  of  his  notes,  made  at  the  time.  This  seemed 
conclusive  testimony,  sufficient  to  set  the  matter  at  rest  for- 
ever. But  if  by  those  notes  is  to  be  understood  no  more 
than  what  has  since  been  published  under  that  name  in  the 
first  volume  of  his  Correspondence,  it  is  clear,  on  examina- 
tion, that  they  present  no  evidence,  excepting  that  which 
may  be  implied  by  their  affirming  nothing  in  corroboration?  " 
—  Life  and  Works  of  John  Adams,  quoted  by  H.  S.  RANDALL. 

Mr.  Randall  refers  to  the  above  as  follows  :  — 

"  This  is  a  most  extraordinary  commentary  !  Does  Mr. 
Jefferson,  in  the  Madison  letter,  bring  or  imply  any '  charge ' 
against  Mr.  Adams  on  the  score  of  age,  or  any  other  score  ? 
Does  he  treat  him  otherwise  than  kindly  and  respectfully  / 
Does  he  so  far  base  a  claim  to  superior  accuracy  on  his  own 
juniority,  that  it  makes  a  reference  to  Mr.  Adams's  age 
'  awkward'  ?  Does  he  (in  exact  conflict  with  the  preceding 
hypothesis  !)  '  disclaim  all  reliance  on  his  recollection '  ? 
And,  lastly,  is  it  true  that  Mr.  Jefferson's  contemporaneous 
'  notes '  '  affirm  nothing  in  corroboration '  of  his  statements 
in  the  premises?" 

Mr.  Randall  has  previously  quoted  Jefferson  as  saying  in 
his  notes  :  "  The  Committee  desired  me  to  do  it  —  it  was 
accordingly  done." 

6.  Read  the  argument  given  below  and  make  a  brief  of 
it,  carefully  stating  objections  and  their  refutation  as  in  the 
example  furnished :  — 

1A.  Although  he  has  gained  convenient  contrivances, 
for 

1  Note  that  this  is  lettered  as  if  it  were  the  first  objection ;  when  the 
previous  paragraph  is  taken  into  consideration  this  proposition  will  no 
longer  be  A. 


166  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

1.  He  has  a  coach  and  crutches. 

2.  He  has  a  Geneva  watch  and  a  Greenwich  nautical 

almanac. 

3.  He  has  notebooks. 

4.  He  has  libraries. 

5.  He  has  insurance  societies. 

A1.   Yet  for  each  material  gain  he  has  suffered  a  corre- 
sponding loss,  for 

i1.    He  has  lost  the  use  of  his  feet  and  his  muscles. 

21.    He  has  lost  knowledge  of  the  sun  and  the  stars. 

31.    He  has  lost  his  memory  in  some  degree. 

41.    His  wit  is  overloaded. 

51.   Accidents  are  more  frequent. 
B.   Although  his  theory  of  life  is  higher,  for 

1.  The  highest  philosophy  was  stoicism. 

2.  Christianity  is  now  established. 

J31.   Yet  his  life  does  not  so  well  comport  with  his  theory, 

for 

i1.   All  Stoics  were  Stoics. 
21.    In  Christendom  where  is  there  a  Christian  ? 

"Society  never  advances.  It  recedes  as  fast  on  one  side  as 
it  gains  on  the  other.  It  undergoes  continual  changes ;  it  is 
barbarous,  it  is  civilized,  it  is  christianized,  it  is  rich,  it  is 
scientific ;  but  this  change  is  not  amelioration.  For  every- 
thing that  is  given,  something  is  taken.  Society  acquires 
new  arts  and  loses  old  instincts.  What  a  contrast  between 
the  well-clad,  reading,  writing,  thinking  American,  with  a 
watch,  a  pencil,  and  a  bill  of  exchange  in  his  pocket,  and  the 
naked  New  Zealander,  whose  property  is  a  club,  a  spear,  a 
mat  and  an  undivided  twentieth  of  a  shed  to  sleep  under  ! 
But  compare  the  health  of  the  two  men  and  you  shall  see 
that  the  white  man  has  lost  his  aboriginal  strength.  If  the 


THE   PROOF  167 

traveller  tell  us  truly,  strike  the  savage  with  a  broad  ax, 
and  in  a  day  or  two  the  flesh  shall  unite  and  heal  as  if  you 
struck  the  blow  into  soft  pitch  ;  and  the  same  blow  shall  send 
the  white  to  his  grave. 

"  The  civilized  man  has  built  a  coach,  but  has  lost  the  use 
of  his  feet.  He  is  supported  on  crutches,  but  lacks  so  much 
support  of  muscle.  He  has  a  fine  Geneva  watch,  but  he 
fails  of  the  skill  to  tell  the  hour  by  the  sun.  A  Greenwich 
nautical  almanac  he  has,  and  so  being  sure  of  the  informa- 
tion when  he  wants  it,  the  man  in  the  street  does  not  know 
a  star  in  the  sky.  The  solstice  he  does  not  observe ;  the 
equinox  he  knows  as  little  ;  and  the  whole  bright  calendar  of 
the  year  is  without  a  dial  in  his  mind.  His  notebooks  im- 
pair his  memory ;  his  libraries  overload  his  wit ;  the  insur- 
ance office  increases  the  number  of  accidents ;  and  it  may 
be  a  question  whether  machinery  does  not  incumber; 
whether  we  have  not  lost  by  refinement  some  energy,  by  a 
Christianity  intrenched  in  establishments  and  forms  some 
vigor  of  wild  virtue.  For  every  Stoic  was  a  Stoic ;  but  in 
Christendom  where  is  the  Christian? 

"  There  is  no  more  deviation  in  the  moral  standard  than  in 
the  standard  of  height  or  bulk.  No  greater  men  are  now 
than  ever  were.  A  singular  equality  may  be  observed  be- 
tween the  great  men  of  the  first  and  of  the  last  ages ;  nor 
can  all  the  science,  art,  religion,  and  philosophy  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  avail  to  educate  greater  men  than  Plutarch's 
heroes,  three  or  four  and  twenty  centuries  ago.  Not  in 
time  is  the  race  progressive.  Phocion,  Socrates,  Anaxago- 
ras,  Diogenes,  are  great  men,  but  they  leave  no  class. 
He  who  is  really  of  their  class  will  not  be  called  by  their 
name,  but  will  be  his  own  man,  and  in  his  turn  the  founder 
of  a  sect.  The  arts  and  inventions  of  each  period  are  only 


168  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

its  costume,  and  do  not  invigorate  men.  The  harm  of  the 
improved  machinery  may  compensate  its  good.  Hudson 
and  Behring  accomplished  so  much  in  their  fishing-boats,  as 
to  astonish  Parry  and  Franklin,  whose  equipment  exhausted 
the  resources  of  science  and  art.  Galileo,  with  an  opera 
glass,  discovered  a  more  splendid  series  of  celestial  phenom- 
ena than  any  one  since.  Columbus  found  the  New  World 
in  an  undecked  boat.  It  is  curious  to  see  the  periodical 
disuse  and  perishing  of  means  and  machinery,  which  were 
introduced  with  loud  laudation  a  few  years  or  centuries  be- 
fore. The  great  genius  returns  to  essential  man.  We 
reckoned  the  improvements  of  the  art  of  war  among  the  tri- 
umphs of  science,  and  yet  Napoleon  conquered  Europe  by 
the  bivouac,  which  consisted  of  falling  back  on  naked  valor 
and  disincumbering  it  of  all  aids.  The  Emperor  held  it  im- 
possible to  make  a  perfect  army,  says  Las  Casas,  *  without 
abolishing  our  arms,  magazines,  commissaries,  and  carriages, 
until,  in  imitation  of  the  Roman  custom,  the  soldier  should 
receive  his  supply  of  corn,  grind  it  in  his  handmill,  and  bake 
his  bread  himself.' 

"Society  is  a  wave.  The  wave  moves  onward,  but  the 
water  of  which  it  is  composed  does  not.  The  same  particle 
does  not  rise  from  the  valley  to  the  ridge.  Its  unity  is  only 
phenomenal.  The  persons  who  make  up  a  nation  to-day, 
next  year  die,  and  their  experience  with  them." 

—  EMERSON  :  Self-Reliance. 

7.   Explain  the  order  of  the  refutation  in  Decius'  speech  : 
"  Casar.    The  cause  is  in  my  will :  I  will  not  come ; 
That  is  enough  to  satisfy  the  senate, 
But  for  your  private  satisfaction, 
Because  I  love  you,  I  will  let  you  know : 
Calpurnia  here,  my  wife,  stays  me  at  home : 


THE   PROOF  169 

She  dreamt  to-night  she  saw  my  statua, 
Which,  like  a  fountain  with  an  hundred  spouts, 
Did  run  pure  blood ;  and  many  lusty  Romans 
Came  smiling,  and  did  bathe  their  hands  in  it : 
And  these  does  she  apply  for  warnings,  and  portents, 
And  evils  imminent ;  and  on  her  knee 
Hath  begg'd  that  I  will  stay  at  home  to-day. 

Decius.   This  dream  is  all  amiss  interpreted : 
It  was  a  vision  fair  and  fortunate  : 
Your  statue  spouting  blood  in  many  pipes, 
In  which  so  many  smiling  Romans  bathed, 
Signifies  that  from  you  great  Rome  shall  suck 
Reviving  blood,  and  that  great  men  shall  press 
For  tinctures,  stains,  relics  and  cognizance. 
This  by  Calpurnia's  dream  is  signified. 

Ccesar.   And  this  way  have  you  well  expounded  it. 

Decius.  I  have,  when  you  have  heard  what  I  can  say : 
And  know  it  now  :  the  senate  have  concluded 
To  give  this  day  a  crown  to  mighty  Caesar. 
If  you  shall  send  them  word  you  will  not  come, 
Their  minds  may  change.     Besides,  it  were  a  mock, 
Apt  to  be  render'd,  for  some  one  to  say, 
'  Break  up  the  senate  till  another  time, 
When  Caesar's  wife  shall  meet  with  better  dreams.' 
If  Caesar  hide  himself,  shall  they  not  whisper, 
'  Lo,  Caesar  is  afraid '  ?  " 

—  SHAKESPEARE  :  Julius  Ccesar. 

8.  Write  a  brief,  using  the  material  on  plagiarism  given 
on  pages  21-25.     Give  ample  refutation  of  points  against 
your  side  of  the  question. 

9.  Read  carefully,  then  analyze  and  make  a  brief  of  the 
following  excerpt :  — 


PROVING  THE  PROPOSITION 


THE   PROOF  I/I 

"  On  the  opposite  page,  Plate  I,  I  have  put,  beside  each 
other,  a  piece  of  true  grotesque,  from  the  Lombard-Gothic, 
and  of  false  grotesque  from  classical  (Roman)  architecture. 
They  are  both  griffins ;  the  one  on  the  left  carries  on  his 
back  one  of  the  main  pillars  of  the  porch  in  the  cathedral  of 
Verona ;  the  one  on  the  right  is  on  the  frieze  of  the  temple 
of  Antoninus  and  Faustina  at  Rome,  much  celebrated  by 
Renaissance  and  bad  modern  architects. 

"  In  some  respects,  however,  this  classical  griffin  deserves 
its  reputation.  It  is  exceedingly  fine  in  lines  of  composition, 
and,  I  believe  (I  have  not  examined  the  original  closely), 
very  exquisite  in  execution.  For  these  reasons,  it  is  all  the 
better  for  our  purpose.  I  do  not  want  to  compare  the  worst 
false  grotesque  with  the  best  true,  but  rather,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  best  false  with  the  simplest  true,  in  order  to  see 
how  the  delicately  wrought  lie  fails  in  the  presence  of  the 
rough  truth ;  for  rough  truth  in  the  present  case  it  is,  the 
Lombard  sculpture  being  altogether  untoward  and  imperfect 
in  execution. 

<; '  Well,  but,'  the  reader  says,  '  what  do  you  mean  by 
calling  either  of  them  true  ?  There  never  were  such  beasts 
in  the  world  as  either  of  these  ?  ' 

"  No,  never  :  but  the  difference  is,  that  the  Lombard  work- 
man did  really  see  a  griffin  in  his  imagination,  and  carved  it 
from  the  life,  meaning  to  declare  to  all  ages  that  he  had 
verily  seen  with  his  immortal  eyes  such  a  griffin  as  that ; 
but  the  classical  workman  never  saw  a  griffin  at  all,  nor 
anything  else  ;  but  put  the  whole  thing  together  by  line  and 
rule. 

" '  How  do  you  know  that? '  " 

"  Very  easily.  Look  at  the  two,  and  think  over  them. 
You  know  a  griffin  is  a  beast  composed  of  lion  and  eagle. 


1/2  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

The  classical  workman  set  himself  to  fit  these  together  in  the 
most  ornamental  way  possible.  He  accordingly  carves  a 
sufficiently  satisfactory  lion's  body,  then  attaches  very  grace- 
fully cut  wings  to  the  sides  :  then,  because  he  cannot  get  the 
eagle's  head  on  the  broad  lion's  shoulders,  fits  the  two 
together  by  something  like  a  horse's  neck  (some  griffins 
being  wholly  composed  of  a  horse  and  eagle),  then,  finding 
the  horse's  neck  look  weak  and  unformidable,  he  strengthens 
it  by  a  series  of  bosses  like  vertebrae,  in  front,  and  by  a 
series  of  spiny  cusps,  instead  of  a  mane,  on  the  ridge ;  next, 
not  to  lose  the  whole  leonine  character  about  the  neck,  he 
gives  a  remnant  of  the  lion's  beard,  turned  into  a  sort  of 
griffin's  whisker,  and  nicely  curled  and  pointed ;  then  an 
eye,  probably  meant  to  look  grand  and  abstracted,  and 
therefore  neither  lion's  nor  eagle's;  and  finally,  an  eagle's 
beak,  very  sufficiently  studied  from  a  real  one.  The  whole 
head  being,  it  seems  to  him,  still  somewhat  wanting  in 
weight  and  power,  he  brings  forward  the  right  wing  behind 
it,  so  as  to  inclose  it  with  a  broad  line.  .  .  .  The  whole 
griffin,  thus  gracefully  composed,  being,  nevertheless,  when 
all  is  done,  a  very  composed  griffin,  is  set  to  very  quiet 
work,  and  raising  his  left  foot,  to  balance  his  right  wing,  sets 
it  on  the  tendril  of  a  flower  so  lightly  as  not  even  to  bend  it 
down,  though,  in  order  to  reach  it,  his  left  leg  is  made  half  as 
long  again  as  his  right. 

"  We  maybe  pretty  sure,  if  the  carver  had  ever  seen  a  griffin, 
he  would  have  reported  of  him  as  doing  something  else  than 
that  with  his  feet.  Let  us  see  what  the  Lombardic  workman 
saw  him  doing. 

"  Remember,  first,  the  griffin,  though  part  lion  and  part 
eagle,  has  the  united  power  of  both.  He  is  not  merely  a  bit 
of  lion  and  a  bit  of  eagle,  but  whole  lion,  incorporate  with 


THE   PROOF  173 

whole  eagle.  So  when  we  really  see  one,  we  may  be  quite 
sure  we  shall  not  find  him  wanting  in  anything  necessary  to 
the  might  either  of  beast  or  bird. 

"  Well,  among  things  essential  to  the  might  of  a  lion, 
perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  most  essential  are  his  teeth.  He 
could  get  on  pretty  well  even  without  his  claws,  usually  strik- 
ing his  prey  down  with  a  blow,  woundless;  but  he  could  by 
no  means  get  on  without  his  teeth.  Accordingly,  we  see 
that  the  real  or  Lombardic  griffin  has  the  carnivorous  teeth 
bare  to  the  root,  and  the  peculiar  hanging  of  the  jaw  at  the 
back,  which  marks  the  flexible  and  gaping  mouth  of  the 
devouring  tribes. 

"  Again  :  among  things  essential  to  the  might  of  an  eagle, 
next  to  his  wings  (which  are  of  course  prominent  in  both 
examples)  are  his  claws.  It  is  no  use  his  being  able  to 
tear  anything  with  his  beak,  if  he  can  not  first  hold  it  in 
his  claws  ;  he  has  comparatively  no  leonine  power  of 
striking  with  his  feet,  but  a  magnificent  power  of  grip 
with  them.  Accordingly,  we  see  that  the  real  griffin, 
while  his  feet  are  heavy  enough  to  strike  like  a  lion's,  has 
them  also  extended  far  enough  to  give  them  the  eagle's  grip 
with  the  back  claw ;  and  has,  moreover,  some  of  the  bird- 
like  wrinkled  skin  over  the  whole  foot,  marking  this  binding 
power  the  more ;  and  that  he  has  besides  verily  got  some- 
thing to  hold  with  his  feet,  other  than  a  flower,  of  which  more 
presently. 

"  Now  observe,  the  Lombardic  workman  did  not  do  all  this 
because  he  had  thought  it  out,  as  you  and  I  are  doing  to- 
gether ;  he  never  thought  a  bit  about  it.  He  simply  saw 
the  beast ;  saw  it  as  plainly  as  you  see  the  writing  on  this 
page,  and  of  course  could  not  be  wrong  in  anything  he  told 
us  of  it. 


1/4  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

"  Well  what  more  does  he  tell  us?  Another  thing,  remera 
ber,  essential  to  an  eagle  is  that  it  should  fly  fast.  It  is  no 
use  its  having  wings  at  all  if  it  is  to  be  impeded  in  the  use 
of  them.  Now  it  would  be  difficult  to  impede  him  more 
thoroughly  than  by  giving  him  two  cocked  ears  to  catch  the 
wind. 

"  Look,  again,  at  the  two  beasts.  You  see  the  false  griffin 
has  them  so  set,  and,  consequently,  as  he  flew,  there  would 
be  a  continual  humming  of  the  wind  on  each  side  of  his 
head,  and  he  would  have  an  infallible  earache  when  he  got 
home.  But  the  real  griffin  has  his  ears  flat  to  his  head,  and 
all  the  hair  of  them  blown  back,  even  to  a  point,  by  his  fast 
flying,  and  the  aperture  is  downwards,  that  he  may  hear  any- 
thing going  on  upon  the  earth,  where  his  prey  is.  In  the 
false  griffin  the  aperture  is  upwards. 

"  Well,  what  more  ?  As  he  is  made  up  of  the  natures  of 
lion  and  eagle,  we  may  be  very  certain  that  a  real  griffin  is, 
on  the  whole,  fond  of  eating,  and  that  his  throat  will  look  as 
if  he  occasionally  took  rather  large  pieces,  besides  being 
flexible  enough  to  let  him  bend  and  stretch  his  head  in  every 
direction  as  he  flies. 

"  Look,  again,  at  the  two  beasts,  you  see  the  false  one  has 
got  those  bosses  upon  his  neck  like  vertebrae ;  which  must 
be  infinitely  in  his  way  when  he  is  swallowing,  and  which 
are  evidently  inseparable,  so  that  he  can  not  stretch  his  neck 
any  more  than  a  horse.  But  the  real  griffin  is  all  loose  about 
the  neck,  evidently  being  able  to  make  it  almost  as  much 
longer  as  he  likes ;  to  stretch  and  bend  it  anywhere,  and 
swallow  anything,  besides  having  some  of  the  grand  strength 
of  the  bull's  dewlap  in  it  when  at  rest. 

"  What  more  ?  Having  both  lion  and  eagle  in  him,  it  is 
probable  that  the  real  griffin  will  have  an  infinite  look  of 


THE  PROOF  175 

repose  as  well  as  power  of  activity.  One  of  the  notablest 
things  about  a  lion  is  his  magnificent  indolence,  his  look 
of  utter  disdain  of  trouble  when  there  is  no  occasion  for 
it;  as,  also,  one  of  the  notablest  things  about  an  eagle  is 
his  look  of  inevitable  vigilance,  even  when  quietest.  Look, 
again,  at  the  two  beasts.  You  see  the  false  griffin  is  quite 
sleepy  and  dead  in  the  eye,  thus  contradicting  his  eagle's 
nature,  but  is  putting  himself  to  a  great  deal  of  unneces- 
sary trouble  with  his  paws,  holding  one  in  a  most  painful 
position  merely  to  touch  a  flower,  and  bearing  the  whole 
weight  of  his  body  on  the  other,  thus  contradicting  his 
lion's  nature. 

"  But  the  real  griffin  is  primarily,  with  his  eagle's  nature, 
wide  awake ;  evidently  quite  ready  for  whatever  may  hap- 
pen ;  and  with  his  lion's  nature,  laid  all  his  length  on  his 
belly,  prone  and  ponderous ;  his  two  paws  as  simply  put  out 
before  him  as  a  drowsy  puppy's  on  a  drawing-room  hearth- 
rug ;  not  but  that  he  has  got  something  to  do  with  them, 
worthy  of  such  paws;  but  he  takes  not  one  whit  more 
trouble  about  it  than  is  absolutely  necessary.  He  has  merely 
got  a  poisonous  winged  dragon  to  hold,  and  for  such  a  little 
matter  as  that,  he  may  as  well  do  it  lying  down  and  at  his 
ease,  looking  out  at  the  same  time  for  any  other  piece  of 
work  in  his  way.  He  takes  the  dragon  by  the  middle,  one 
paw  under  the  wing,  another  above,  gathers  him  up  into 
a  knot,  puts  two  or  three  of  his  claws  well  into  his  back, 
crashing  through  the  scales  of  it  and  wrinkling  all  the 
flesh  up  from  the  wound,  flattens  him  down  against 
the  ground,  and  so  lets  him  do  what  he  likes.  The  dragon 
tries  to  bite  him,  but  can  only  bring  his  head  round  far 
enough  to  get  hold  of  his  own  wing,  which  he  bites  in 
agony  instead;  flapping  the  griffin's  dewlap  with  it,  and 


1/6  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

wriggling  his  tail  up  against  the  griffin's  throat ;  the  griffin 
being,  as  to  these  minor  proceedings,  entirely  indifferent, 
sure  that  the  dragon's  body  cannot  drag  itself  one  hair's- 
breadth  off  those  ghastly  claws,  and  that  its  head  can  do 
no  harm  but  to  itself. 

"  Now  observe  how  in  all  this,  through  every  separate  part 
and  action  of  the  creature,  the  imagination  is  alway*  right. 
It  evidently  can  not  err ;  it  meets  every  one  of  our  require- 
ments respecting  the  griffin  as  simply  as  if  it  were  gathering 
up  the  bones  of  the  real  creature  out  of  some  ancient  rock. 
It  does  not  itself  know  or  care,  any  more  than  the  peasant 
laboring  with  his  spade  and  axe,  what  is  wanted  to  meet  our 
theories  or  fancies.  It  knows  simply  what  is  there,  and 
brings  out  the  positive  creature,  errorless,  unquestionable. 
So  it  is  throughout  art,  and  in  all  that  the  imagination  does ; 
if  anything  be  wrong  it  is  not  the  imagination's  fault,  but 
some  inferior  faculty's,  which  would  have  its  foolish  say 
in  the  matter,  and  meddled  with  the  imagination,  and  said, 
the  bones  ought  to  be  put  together  tail  first,  or  upside  down. 

"  This  however  we  need  not  be  amazed  at,  because  the  very 
essence  of  the  imagination  is  already  defined  to  be  the  seeing 
to  the  heart ;  and  it  is  not  therefore  wonderful  that  it  should 
never  err ;  but  it  is  wonderful,  on  the  other  hand,  how  the 
composing  legalism  does  nothing  else  than  err.  One  would 
have  thought  that,  by  mere  chance,  in  this  or  the  other  ele- 
ment of  griffin,  the  griffin-composer  might  have  struck  out  a 
truth  ;  that  he  might  have  had  the  luck  to  set  the  ears  back, 
or  to  give  some  grasp  to  the  claw.  But,  no  ;  from  beginning 
to  end  it  is  evidently  impossible  for  him  to  be  anything  but 
wrong ;  his  whole  soul  is  instinct  with  lies ;  no  veracity  can 
come  within  hail  of  him ;  to  him  all  regions  of  right  and  life 
are  forever  closed. 


THE   PROOF  177 

"And  another  notable  point  is,  that  while  the  imagination 
receives  truth  in  this  simple  way,  it  is  all  the  while  receiving 
statutes  of  composition  also,  far  more  noble  than  those  for 
the  sake  of  which  the  truth  was  lost  by  the  legalist.  The 
ornamental  lines  in  the  classical  griffin  appear  at  first  finer 
than  in  the  other ;  but  they  only  appear  so  because  they  are 
more  commonplace  and  more  palpable.  The  subtlety  of  the 
sweeping  and  rolling  curves  in  the  real  griffin,  the  way  they 
waver  and  change  and  fold,  down  the  neck,  and  along  the 
wing,  and  in  and  out  among  the  serpent's  coils,  is  incompa- 
rably grander,  merely  as  grouping  of  ornamental  line,  than 
anything  in  the  other ;  nor  is  it  fine  as  ornamental  only, 
but  as  massively  useful,  giving  weight  of  stone  enough  to 
answer  the  entire  purpose  of  pedestal  sculpture.  Note, 
especially,  the  insertion  of  the  three  plumes  of  the 
dragon's  broken  wing  in  the  outer  angle,  just  under  the 
large  coil  of  his  body ;  this  filling  of  the  gap  being  one 
of  the  necessities,  not  of  the  pedestal  block  merely,  but 
a  means  of  getting  mass  and  breadth,  which  all  com- 
posers desire  more  or  less,  but  which  they  seldom  so 
perfectly  accomplish. 

"So  that  taking  the  truth  first,  the  honest  imagination  gains 
everything ;  it  has  its  griffinism,  and  grace,  and  usefulness, 
all  at  once  :  but  the  false  composer,  caring  for  nothing  but 
himself  and  his  rules,  loses  everything,  —  griffinism,  grace, 
and  all. 

"  I  believe  the  reader  will  now  sufficiently  see  how  the 
terms  '  true  '  and  '  false  '  are  in  the  most  accurate  sense  attach- 
able to  the  opposite  branches  of  what  might  appear  at  first, 
in  both  cases,  the  merest  wildness  of  inconsistent  reverie.  But 
they  are  even  to  be  attached,  in  a  deeper  sense  than  that  in 
which  we  have  hitherto  used  them,  to  these  two  compositions. 

ARGUMENTATION  —  12 


178  PROVING  THE  PROPOSITION 

For  the  imagination  hardly  ever  worhs  in  this  intense  way, 
unincumbered  by  the  inferior  faculties,  unless  it  be  under 
the  influence  of  some  solemn  purpose  or  sentiment.  And  to 
all  the  falseness  and  all  the  verity  of  these  two  ideal  crea- 
tures this  farther  falsehood  and  verity  have  yet  to  be 
added,  that  the  classical  griffin  has,  at  least  in  this  place, 
no  other  intent  than  that  of  covering  a  level  surface  with 
entertaining  form ;  but  the  Lombardic  griffin  is  a  profound 
expression  of  the  most  passionate  symbolism.  Under  its 
eagle's  wings  are  two  wheels,  which  mark  it  as  connected, 
in  the  mind  of  him  who  wrought  it,  with  the  living  crea- 
tures in  the  vision  of  Ezekiel :  '  When  they  went,  the  wheels 
went  by  them,  and  whithersoever  the  spirit  was  to  go,  they 
went,  and  the  wheels  were  lifted  up  over  against  them,  for  the 
spirit  of  the  living  creatures  was  in  the  wheels.'  Thus  signed, 
the  winged  shape  becomes  at  once  one  of  the  acknowledged 
symbols  of  the  Divine  power ;  and,  in  its  unity  of  lion  and 
eagle,  the  workman  of  the  Middle  Ages  always  means  to  set 
forth  the  unity  of  the  human  and  divine  natures.  In  this 
unity  it  bears  up  the  pillars  of  the  Church,  set  forever  as  the 
corner-stone.  And  the  faithful  and  true  imagination  beholds 
it,  in  this  unity,  with  everlasting  vigilance  and  calm  omnipo- 
tence, restrain  the  seed  of  the  serpent  crushed  upon  the 
earth ;  leaving  the  head  of  it  free,  only  for  a  time,  that  it 
may  inflict  in  its  fury  profounder  destruction  upon  itself,  — 
in  this  also  full  of  deep  meaning.  The  Divine  power  does 
not  slay  the  evil  creature.  It  wounds  and  restrains  it  only. 
Its  final  and  deadly  wound  is  inflicted  by  itself." 

—  RUSK  IN  :  Modern  Painters. 

10.  Write  a  complete  brief  for  a  long  original  forensic  on 
the  question  on  which  you  prepared  an  introduction  to  a 
brief  at  the  close  of  the  work  on  the  introduction. 


PRESENTATION   OF   MATERIAL  —  THE 
FORENSIC 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  FORENSIC 

WHEN  the  brief  is  completed  the  problem  of  gen- 
eral structure  is  solved.  The  solution  is  not  neces- 
sarily unalterable.  If  the  student  in  the  heat  of 
writing  strikes  a  truer  relationship  of  parts  than  he 
discovered  in  making  the  brief,  he  should  not  spare 
himself  the  trouble  of  readjusting  the  parts  of  the 
brief,  even  though  his  instructor  has  pronounced  the 
brief  acceptable.  Revision  resulting  from  such  after- 
thoughts will  not  infrequently  be  necessary  until  the 
student  has  gained  real  proficiency  in  brief  drawing. 
The  student  should  not,  however,  begin  to  write  with 
the  expectation  of  making  changes  in  structure.  He 
should  have  worked  over  his  brief  till  he  feels  that 
he  has  reached  a  unified,  coherent,  and  emphatic 
arrangement  of  material. 

He  is  then  able  to  concentrate  his  attention  upon 
the  problem  of  presenting  what  he  has  to  say  with  as 
much  force  and  charm  of  style  as  he  can  command. 
There  is  no  peculiar  law  for  argumentation  of  the 
highest  order,  —  that  is,  argumentation  addressed  to 
an  audience  whose  intelligence  is  assumed  to  be 
179 


ISO  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

equal  to  the  writer's,  —  no  pattern  to  which  all  must 
conform.  There  is  as  much  room  for  individuality 
here  as  in  any  field  of  literature.  Given  the  same 
brief,  we  may  have  as  many  different  developments 
of  it  as  there  are  individuals  to  experiment  with  it,  if 
only  each  writes  naturally.  But  very  often,  at  first, 
the  writer  feels  all  his  pleasure  and  power  in  composi- 
tion slipping  away  as  he  sits  down  to  expand  his  unyield- 
ing brief  into  a  forensic.  A  statement  of  propositions 
and  supporting  evidence  almost  repellent  in  its  for- 
mality and  rigidness  is  apt  to  be  the  result  when  the 
student  writes  for  the  first  time  under  the  dominance 
of  a  brief.  If  he  is  not  pleased  with  his  accomplish- 
ment, he  should  not  blame  the  brief.  He  should 
rather  bear  in  mind  Phillips  Brooks's  advice  to  young 
preachers.  "  The  true  way  to  get  rid  of  the  boniness 
of  a  sermon,"  he  told  them,  "  is  not  by  leaving  out 
the  skeleton,  but  by  clothing  it  with  flesh." 

One  who  conceives  of  argumentation  as  an  arid 
form  of  discourse  in  which  natural  ability  to  write  is 
at  a  discount,  will  scarcely  succeed  here.  It  is  true 
that  in  argumentation  a  pleasing  style  without  a  solid, 
logical  foundation  can  not  make  a  successful  piece  of 
work.  It  is  also  true  that  a  good  brief  developed 
with  fidelity  so  that  the  finished  forensic  shall  have 
the  apprentice  virtues,  —  thoroughness,  unity,  coher- 
ence, etc.,  —  even  though  it  has  no  touch  of  the 
true  amateur's  pleasure  in  writing,  in  finding  the  fit 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   FORENSIC  l8l 

expression  for  his  idea,  may  make  an  acceptable  fo- 
rensic. But  if  the  brief  is  a  good  one,  its  right  devel- 
opment will  tax  all  the  skill  the  writer  has.  The 
briefs  being  equally  good,  the  best  forensic  will  be  his 
who  has  the  most  distinguished  ability  as  a  writer. 
All  other  forms  of  discourse  —  narration,  description, 
and  exposition  —  are  used  in  the  development  of  an 
argument.  That  it  must  here  serve  a  purpose  ought 
to  give  point  to  the  story,  lucidity  to  the  explanation, 
vividness  to  the  description. 

You  may  feel  when  your  brief  is  finished  that  all 
has  been  said,  and  that  may  be  the  case  In  the 
paragraph  on  society  analyzed  on  page  166  there  is 
comparatively  little  development.  But  this  is  not 
always  the  case.  Your  brief  may  say:  — 

My  experience  leads  me  to  think  treats  give  the  moder- 
ately poor  more  pleasure  than  the  rich,  for 

When  I  was  poor  I  took  greater  joy  in  the  purchase 

of  a  luxury. 
When  I  was  poor  I  took  greater  joy  in  the  theatre. 

See  how  Charles  Lamb  makes  "  Bridget "  in  her  ar- 
gument on  this  question  develop  these  propositions :  — 

" '  Do  you  remember  the  brown  suit,  which  you  made  to 
hang  upon  you,  till  all  your  friends  cried  shame  upon  you,  it 
grew  so  threadbare  —  and  all  because  of  that  folio  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher,  which  you  dragged  home  late  at  night 
from  Barker's  in  Covent  Garden?  Do  you  remember  how 
we  eyed  it  for  weeks  before  we  could  make  up  our  minds  to 
the  purchase,  and  had  not  come  to  a  determination  till  it 


182  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

was  near  ten  o'clock  of  the  Saturday  night,  when  you  set  off 
from  Islington,  fearing  you  should  be  too  late  —  and  when 
the  old  bookseller  with  some  grumbling  opened  his  shop,  and 
by  the  twinkling  taper  (for  he  was  setting  bedwards)  lighted 
out  the  relic  from  his  dusty  treasures  —  and  when  you  lugged 
it  home,  wishing  it  were  twice  as  cumbersome  —  and  when 
you  presented  it  to  me  —  and  when  we  were  exploring  the 
perfectness  of  it  (collating,  you  called  it)  — and  while  I  was 
repairing  some  of  the  loose  leaves  with  paste,  which  your 
impatience  would  not  suffer  to  be  left  till  daybreak  —  was 
there  no  pleasure  in  being  a  poor  man?  or  can  those  neat 
black  clothes  which  you  wear  now,  and  are  so  careful  to  keep 
brushed,  since  we  have  become  rich  and  finical  —  give  you 
half  the  honest  vanity  with  which  you  flaunted  it  about  in 
that  overworn  suit  —  your  old  corbeau  —  for  four  or  five 
weeks  longer  than  you  should  have  done,  to  pacify  your 
conscience  for  the  mighty  sum  of  fifteen  —  or  sixteen  shil- 
lings was  it?  —  a  great  affair  we  thought  it  then  —  which  you 
had  lavished  on  the  old  folio.  Now  you  can  afford  to  buy 
any  book  that  pleases  you,  but  I  do  not  see  that  you  ever 
bring  me  home  any  nice  old  purchases  now. 

*  *  *  *  #  *  * 

" '  You  are  too  proud  to  see  a  play  anywhere  now  but  in 
the  pit.  Do  you  remember  where  it  was  we  used  to  sit, 
when  we  saw  the  Battle  of  Hexham,  and  the  Surrender  of 
Calais,  and  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  in  the  Children  in  the 
Wood  —  when  we  squeezed  out  our  shillings  apiece  to  sit 
three  or  four  times  in  a  season  in  the  one-shilling  gallery  — 
where  you  felt  all  the  time  that  you  ought  not  to  have 
brought  me  —  and  more  strongly  I  felt  obligation  to  you  for 
having  brought  me  —  and  the  pleasure  was  the  better  for  a 
little  shame  —  and  when  the  curtain  drew  up,  what  cared  we 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   FORENSIC  183 

for  our  place  in  the  house,  or  what  mattered  it  where  we  were 
sitting,  when  our  thoughts  were  with  Rosalind  in  Arden,  or 
with  Viola  at  the  Court  of  Illyria  ?  You  used  to  say  that  the 
gallery  was  the  best  place  of  all  for  enjoying  a  play  socially 

—  that  the  relish  of  such  exhibitions  must  be  in  proportion 
to  the  infrequency  of  going  —  that  the  company  we   met 
there,  not  being  in  general  readers  of  plays,  were  obliged  to 
attend  the  more,  and  did  attend,  to  what  was  going  on,  on 
the  stage  —  because  a  word  lost  would  have  been  a  chasm, 
which  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  fill  up.     With  such  re- 
flections we  consoled  our  pride  then,  and  I  appeal  to  you 
whether,  as  a  woman,  I  met  generally  with  less  attention  and 
accommodation  than  I  have  done  since  in  more  expensive 
situations  in  the  house?     The  getting  in,  indeed,  and  the 
crowding  up  those  inconvenient  staircases,  was  bad  enough, 
but  there  was  still  a  law  of  civility  to  woman  recognized  to 
quite  as  great  an  extent  as  we  ever  found  in  the  other  pas- 
sages —  and  how  a  little  difficulty  overcome  heightened  the 
snug  seat  and  the  play,  afterwards  ! ' " 

—  CHARLES  LAMB  :  Old  China. 

The  first  proposition  is  made  convincing  to  the 
reader  by  the  detailed  narration  of  a  signal  instance 

—  the  purchase  of  the  folio  ;  the  second,  by  an  ex- 
planation of  the  compensations  that  attend  a  gallery 
seat  in  the  theatre. 

You  will  notice  in  the  selection  from  Emerson, 
already  referred  to,  the  tendency  to  repeat  an  idea 
several  times:  — 

"  Society  never  advances.  It  recedes  as  fast  on  one  side 
as  it  gains  on  the  other.  It  undergoes  continual  changes  — • 


1 84  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

but  this  change  is  not  amelioration.  For  everything  that  is 
given,  something  is  taken.  Society  acquires  new  arts,  and 
loses  old  instincts.  Society  is  a  wave,"  etc. 

Fox  is  said  to  have  declared  that  to  the  multitude 
one  argument  stated  in  five  different  forms  is  equal 
to  five  new  arguments.  The  single  statement  in  the 
brief  should  show  that  the  student  does  not  make  this 
error.  But  in  his  forensic  he  may  often  with  profit 
resort  to  repetition,  either  to  emphasize  or  to  make 
clear  an  idea.  It  was  a  habit  that  Burke  did  not  lose 
by.  Take  for  example  his  iteration  and  reiteration 
of  the  idea  that  it  was  not  what  England  could,  but 
what  she  ought  to  do  with  reference  to  the  American 
colonies  that  was  the  question  of  importance  :  — 

"  The  question  with  me  is,  not  whether  you  have  a  right  to 
render  your  people  miserable,  but  whether  it  is  not  your  in- 
terest to  make  them  happy.  It  is  not  what  a  lawyer  tells 
me  I  may  do,  but  what  humanity,  reason  and  justice  tell  me 
I  ought  to  do.  Is  a  politic  act  the  worse  for  being  a  gener- 
ous one?  Is  no  concession  proper  but  that  which  is  made 
from  your  want  of  right  to  keep  what  you  grant?  Or  does 
it  lessen  the  grace  or  dignity  of  relaxing  in  the  exercise  of 
an  odious  claim  because  you  have  your  evidence-room  full 
of  titles,  and  your  magazines  stuffed  with  arms  to  enforce 
them?  What  signify  all  those  titles,  and  all  those  arms? 
Of  what  avail  are  they,  when  the  reason  of  the  thing  tells  me 
that  the  assertion  of  my  title  is  the  loss  of  my  suit,  and  that 
I  could  do  nothing  but  wound  myself  by  the  use  of  my  own 
weapons? 

"  Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  absolute  necessity  of 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   FORENSIC  185 

keeping  up  the  concord  of  this  empire  by  a  unity  of  spirit, 
though  in  a  diversity  of  operations,  that  if  I  were  sure  the 
colonists  had  at  their  leaving  this  country  sealed  a  regular 
compact  of  servitude,  that  they  had  solemnly  abjured  all 
the  rights  of  citizens,  that  they  had  made  a  vow  to  renounce 
all  ideas  of  liberty  for  them  and  their  posterity  to  all  genera- 
tions ;  yet  I  should  hold  myself  obliged  to  conform  to  the 
temper  I  found  universally  prevalent  in  my  own  day,  and  to 
govern  two  million  of  men,  impatient  of  servitude,  on  the 
principles  of  freedom.  I  am  not  determining  a  point  of 
law ;  I  am  restoring  tranquillity ;  and  the  general  character 
and  situation  of  a  people  must  determine  what  sort  of  gov- 
ernment is  fitted  for  them.  That  point  nothing  else  can  or 
ought  to  determine." — BURKE  :  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies. 

There  is,  of  course,  always  the  danger  of  excess. 
You  must  be  sure  your  idea  is  worth  repeating ;  that 
it  needs  explanation  and  enforcement ;  and  that  you 
repeat  it  in  such  wise  as  to  illumine,  not  darken ;  to 
strengthen,  not  enfeeble. 

EXERCISES 

i.  Use  analogy  to  show  that  the  following  assertions  may 
be  true  :  — 

a.  If  a  student  has  little  ability  for  mathematics,  it  is  the 
more  important  that  he  should  study  the  subject. 

b.  It  is  fortunate  for  a  strong  character  like  Lincoln  to 
have  to  contend  against  hardships. 

c.  Fair  faces  are  sometimes  deceiving. 

d.  You  can  put  no  reliance  on  a  man  without  principle. 

e.  That  man's  exuberance  of  spirit  is  too  uniform  to  be 
genuine. 


186  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

/.  We  are  often  unaware  of  those  influences  that  have 
most  deeply  affected  us. 

g.   Russia  needed  a  good  defeat. 

h.  Some  penalty  must  be  paid  for  every  great  social 
reform. 

2.  Sustain  the  following  propositions  by  authority  :  — 

a.  The  sentence,  "  She  looked  beautifully,"  is  incorrect. 
(Cite  the  usage  of  good  authors,  the  opinions  of  gramma- 
rians and  lexicographers.) 

b.  Washington's  army  suffered  great  hardships  while  at 
Valley  Forge. 

3.  Prove  the  truth  of  the  two  propositions  just  given  by 
presenting  reasons. 

4.  Choose    one    of    the   following    generalizations    and 
develop  it  by  presenting  numerous  examples  briefly  but  in  a 
varied  and  suggestive  way.     Choose  another  generalization 
and  give  one  excellent,  well- developed  example  in  proof  of 
it:  — 

a.  Honesty  is  the  best  policy. 

b.  The  gods  bring  thread  for  a  web  begun. 

c.  The  deepest  natures  develop  slowly. 

d.  Familiarity  breeds  contempt. 

e.  College  education  is  not  necessary  to  business  success. 
/.   Animal  stories  have  recently  been  very  popular. 

g.  Most  people  have  some  pet  economy. 

h.  The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them. 

/.  A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing. 

/  A  spice  of  danger  attracts. 

k.  Forbidden  fruits  are  sweetest. 

/.  Where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way. 

m.   Dame  Fortune  is  fickle. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  FORENSIC     187 

5.  Tell  by  what  method  or  methods  each  of  the  following 
bits  of  argument  is  developed  :  — 

a.  "  The  most  polite  age  is  in  danger  of  being  the  most 
vicious. 

"  It  happened  at  Athens,  during  a  public  representation  of 
some  play  exhibited  in  honor  of  the  commonwealth,  that  an 
old  gentleman  came  too  late  for  a  place  suitable  to  his  age 
and  quality.  Many  of  the  young  gentlemen  who  observed 
the  difficulty  and  confusion  he  was  in,  made  signs  to  him 
that  they  would  accommodate  him  if  he  came  where  they 
sat.  The  good  man  bustled  through  the  crowd  accordingly ; 
but  when  he  came  to  the  seats  to  which  he  was  invited,  the 
jest  was  to  sit  close  and  expose  him,  as  he  stood  out  of 
countenance,  to  the  whole  audience.  The  frolic  went  round 
all  the  Athenian  benches.  But  on  those  occasions  there 
were  also  particular  places  assigned  for  foreigners.  When 
the  good  man  skulked  towards  the  boxes  appointed  for  the 
Lacedemonians,  that  honest  people,  more  virtuous  than 
polite,  rose  up  all,  to  a  man,  and  with  the  greatest  respect  re- 
ceived him  among  them.  The  Athenians,  being  suddenly 
touched  with  a  sense  of  the  Spartan  virtue  and  their  own 
degeneracy,  gave  a  thunder  of  applause ;  and  the  old  man 
cried  out,  '  The  Athenians  understand  what  is  good,  but  the 
Lacedemonians  practice  it ! '  "  —  STEELE  :  The  Spectator. 

b.  "  I  shall,  in  parting,  allude  to  one  or  two  traits  in 
Joanna's  demeanor  on  the  scaffold,  and  to  one  or  two  in 
that  of  the  bystanders,  which  authorize  me  in  questioning 
an  opinion  of  his  [M.  Michelet's]  upon  this  martyr's  firm- 
ness.    The  reader  ought  to  be  reminded  that  Joanna  d'Arc 
was  subjected  to  an  unusually  unfair  trial  of  opinion.     Any 
of  the  elder  Christian  martyrs  had  not  much  to  fear  of  per- 
sonal rancor.     The  martyr  was  chiefly  regarded  as  the  enemy 


188  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

of  Caesar;  at  times,  also,  where  any  knowledge  of  the 
Christian  faith  and  morals  existed,  with  the  enmity  that 
arises  spontaneously  in  the  worldly  against  the  spiritual. 
But  the  martyr,  though  disloyal,  was  not  supposed  to  be, 
therefore,  anti-national ;  and  still  less  was  individually  hate- 
ful. What  was  hated  (if  anything)  belonged  to  his  class, 
not  to  himself  separately.  Now,  Joanna,  if  hated  at  all,  was 
hated  personally,  and  in  Rouen  on  national  grounds.  Hence 
there  would  be  a  certainty  of  calumny  arising  against  her, 
such  as  would  not  affect  martyrs  in  general.  That  being  the 
case,  it  would  follow  of  necessity  that  some  people  would 
impute  to  her  a  willingness  to  recant.  No  innocence  could 
escape  that.  Now,  had  she  really  testified  this  willingness 
on  the  scaffold,  it  would  have  argued  nothing  at  all  but  the 
weakness  of  a  genial  nature  shrinking  from  the  instant 
approach  of  torment.  And  those  will  often  pity  that  weak- 
ness most,  who,  in  their  own  persons,  would  yield  to  it  least. 
Meantime,  there  never  was  a  calumny  uttered  that  drew  less 
support  from  the  recorded  circumstances.  It  rests  upon  no 
positive  testimony,  and  it  has  a  weight  of  contradicting  testi- 
mony to  stem.  And  yet,  strange  to  say,  M.  Michelet,  who 
at  times  seems  to  admire  the  Maid  of  Arc  as  much  as  I  do, 
is  the  one  sole  writer  amongst  her  friends  who  lends  some 
countenance  to  this  odious  slander.  His  words  are  that,  if 
she  did  not  utter  this  word  recant  with  her  lips,  she  uttered 
it  in  her  heart.  '  Whether  she  said  the  word  is  uncertain  ; 
but  I  affirm  that  she  thought  it.' 

"  Now,  I  affirm  that  she  did  not ;  not  in  any  sense  of  the 
word  '  thought '  applicable  to  the  case.  Here  is  France 
calumniating  La  Pucelle  :  here  is  England  defending  her. 
M.  Michelet  can  only  mean  that,  on  a  priori  principles,  every 
woman  must  be  liable  to  such  a  weakness  :  that  Joanna  was  a 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  FORENSIC    189 

woman  ;  ergo,  that  she  was  liable  to  such  a  weakness.  That 
is,  he  only  supposes  her  to  have  uttered  the  word  by  an  argu- 
ment which  presumes  it  impossible  for  anybody  to  have  done 
otherwise.  I,  on  the  contrary,  throw  the  onus  of  the  argu- 
ment not  on  presumable  tendencies  of  nature,  but  on  the 
known  facts  of  that  morning's  execution,  as  recorded  by  mul- 
titudes. What  else,  I  demand,  than  mere  weight  of  metal, 
absolute  nobility  of  deportment,  broke  the  vast  line  of  battle 
then  arrayed  against  her  ?  What  else  but  her  meek,  saintly 
demeanor  won  from  the  enemies,  that  till  now  had  believed 
her  a  witch,  tears  of  rapturous  admiration?  'Ten  thousand 
men,'  says  M.  Michelet  himself,  'ten  thousand  men  wept;' 
and  of  these  ten  thousand  the  majority  we  re  political  enemies 
knitted  together  by  cords  of  superstition.  What  else  was  it 
but  her  constancy,  united  with  her  angelic  gentleness,  that 
drove  the  fanatic  English  soldier  — who  had  sworn  to  throw  a 
faggot  on  her  scaffold,  as  his  tribute  of  abhorrence,  that  did 
so,  that  fulfilled  his  vow  —  suddenly  to  turn  away  a  penitent 
for  life,  saying  everywhere  that  he  had  seen  a  dove  rising 
upon  wings  to  heaven  from  the  ashes  where  she  had  stood  ? 
What  else  drove  the  executioner  to  kneel  at  every  shrine  for 
pardon  to  his  share  in  the  tragedy?  And  if  all  this  were  in- 
sufficient, then  I  cite  the  closing  act  of  her  life,  as  valid  on 
her  behalf,  were  all  other  testimonies  against  her.  The  exe- 
cutioner had  been  directed  to  apply  his  torch  from  below.  He 
did  so.  The  fiery  smoke  rose  upwards  in  billowing  volumes. 
A  Dominican  monk  was  then  standing  almost  at  her  side. 
Wrapped  up  in  his  sublime  office,  he  saw  not  the  danger,  but 
still  persisted  in  his  prayers.  Even  then,  when  the  last  enemy 
was  racing  up  the  fiery  stairs  to  seize  her,  even  at  that  mo- 
ment did  this  noblest  of  girls  think  only  for  him,  the  one 
friend  that  would  not  forsake  her,  and  not  for  herself;  bid- 


IQO  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

ding  him  with  her  last  breath  to  care  for  his  own  preservation, 
but  to  leave  her  to  God.  That  girl,  whose  latest  breath  as- 
cended in  this  sublime  expression  of  self-oblivion,  did  not 
utter  the  word  recant  either  with  her  lips  or  in  her  heart.  No  ; 
she  did  not,  though  one  should  rise  from  the  dead  to  swear  it." 
—  DE  QUINCEY  :  _/##«  of  Arc. 

c.  "  But  now,  furthermore,  give  me  leave  to  ask,  whether 
the  way  of  doing  it  [stopping  the  trade  in  slaves]  is  this 
somewhat  surprising  one,  of  trying  to  blockade  the  Continent 
of  Africa  itself,  and  to  watch  slave-ships  along  that  extremely 
extensive  and  unwholesome  coast  ?  The  enterprise  is  very 
gigantic ;  and  proves  hitherto  as  futile  as  any  enterprise 
has  lately  done.  Certain  wise  men  once,  before  this,  set 
about  confining  the  cuckoo  by  a  big  circular  wall ;  but  they 
could  not  manage  it !  — Watch  the  coast  of  Africa?  That 
is  a  very  long  Coast ;  good  part  of  the  Coast  of  the  terra- 
queous Globe  !  And  the  living  centers  of  this  slave  mischief, 
the  live  coals  that  produce  all  this  world-wide  smoke,  it 
appears  lie  simply  in  two  points,  Cuba  and  Brazil,  which  are 
perfectly  accessible  and  manageable. 

******* 

"Most  thinking  people, — if  hen-stealing  prevail  to  a  plainly 
unendurable  extent,  will  you  station  police-officers  at  every 
hen-roost ;  and  keep  them  watching  and  cruising  incessantly 
to  and  fro  over  the  Parish,  in  the  unwholesome  dark,  at  enor- 
mous expense,  with  almost  no  effect  ?  Or  will  you  not  try  rather 
to  discover  where  the  fox's  den  is,  and  kill  the  fox  !  Which  of 
those  two  things  will  you  do?  Most  thinking  people,  you 
know  the  fox  and  his  den  :  there  he  is,  —  kill  him  and  dis- 
charge your  cruisers  and  police-watchers."  —  CARLYLE  :  The 
Nigger  Question. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   FORENSIC          191 

d.  "  It  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  we  cannot  know  anything 
whatever  except  as  contrasted  with  something  else.  The 
contrast  may  be  bold  and  sharp,  or  it  may  dwindle  into  a 
slight  discrimination,  but  it  must  be  there.  If  the  figures  on 
your  canvas  are  indistinguishable  from  the  background,  there 
is  surely  no  picture  to  be  seen.  Some  element  of  unlikeness, 
some  germ  of  antagonism,  some  chance  for  discrimination,  is 
essential  to  every  act  of  knowing.  ...  It  is  not  a  super- 
ficial but  a  fundamental  truth,  that  if  there  were  no  color 
but  red  it  would  be  exactly  the  same  thing  as  if  there  were 
no  color  at  all.  In  a  world  of  unqualified  redness,  our  state 
of  mind  with  regard  to  color  would  be  precisely  like  our 
state  of  mind  in  the  present  world  with  regard  to  the  pres- 
sure of  the  atmosphere  if  we  were  always  to  stay  in  one 
place.  We  are  always  bearing  up  against  the  burden  of  this 
deep  aerial  ocean,  nearly  fifteen  pounds  upon  every  square 
inch  of  our  bodies ;  but  until  we  get  a  chance  to  discrim- 
inate, as  by  climbing  a  mountain,  we  are  quite  unconscious 
of  this  heavy  pressure.  In  the  same  way,  if  we  knew  but 
one  color  we  should  know  no  color.  If  our  ears  were  to  be 
filled  with  one  monotonous  roar  of  Niagara,  unbroken  by  alien 
sounds,  the  effect  upon  consciousness  would  be  absolute 
silence.  If  our  palates  had  never  come  in  contact  with  any 
tasteful  thing  save  sugar,  we  should  know  no  more  of  sweet- 
ness than  of  bitterness.  If  we  had  never  felt  physical  pain, 
we  could  not  recognize  physical  pleasure.  For  want  of  the 
contrasted  background  its  pleasurableness  would  be  non- 
existent. And  in  just  the  same  way  it  follows  that  without 
knowing  that  which  is  morally  evil  we  could  not  possibly 
recognize  that  which  is  morally  good.  Of  these  antago- 
nist correlatives,  the  one  is  unthinkable  in  the  absence  of 
the  other.  In  a  sinless  and  painless  world,  human  conduct 


IQ2  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

might  possess  more  outward  marks  of  perfection  than  any 
saint  ever  dreamed  of;  but  the  moral  element  would  be 
lacking ;  the  goodness  would  have  no  more  significance  in 
our  conscious  life  than  that  load  of  atmosphere  which  we  are 
always  carrying  about  with  us. 

"We  are  thus  brought  to  a  striking  conclusion,  the  essential 
soundness  of  which  cannot  be  gainsaid.  In  a  happy  world 
there  must  be  sorrow  and  pain,  and  in  a  moral  world  the 
knowledge  of  evil  is  indispensable."  —  FISKE  :  The  Mystery 
of  Evil. 

e.  "  It  seems  that  a  really  great  author  must  admit  of  trans- 
lation, and  that  we  have  a  test  of  his  excellence  when  he  reads 
to  advantage  in  a  foreign  language  as  well  as  in  his  own. 
Then  Shakespeare  is  a  genius  because  he  can  be  translated 
into  German,  and  not  a  genius  because  he  can  not  be  trans- 
lated into  French.  Then  the  multiplication- table  is  the  most 
gifted  of  all  conceivable  compositions,  because  it  loses  noth- 
ing by  translation,  and  can  hardly  be  said  to  belong  to  any 
one  language  whatever.  Whereas  I  should  rather  have  con- 
ceived that,  in  proportion  as  ideas  are  novel  and  recondite, 
they  would  be  difficult  to  put  into  words,  and  that  the  very 
fact  of  their  having  insinuated  themselves  into  one  language 
would  diminish  the  chance  of  that  happy  accident  being  re- 
peated in  another.  In  the  language  of  savages  you  can 
hardly  express  any  idea  or  act  of  the  intellect  at  all :  is  the 
tongue  of  the  Hottentot  or  Esquimaux  to  be  made  the  meas- 
ure of  the  genius  of  Plato,  Pindar,  Tacitus,  St.  Jerome,  Dante, 
or  Cervantes  ? 

"  Let  us  recur,  I  say,  to  the  illustration  of  the  Fine  Arts. 
I  suppose  you  can  express  ideas  in  painting  which  you  can  not 
express  in  sculpture ;  and  the  more  an  artist  is  of  a  painter, 
the  less  he  is  likely  to  be  of  a  sculptor.  The  more  he  commits 


ARTICULATION   OF  THE   PARTS  193 

his  genius  to  the  methods  and  conditions  of  his  own  art,  the 
less  he  will  be  able  to  throw  himself  into  the  circumstances 
of  another.  Is  the  genius  of  Fra  Angelico,  of  Francia,  or 
Raffaelle  disparaged  by  the  fact  that  he  was  able  to  do  that 
in  colors  which  no  man  that  ever  lived,  which  no  angel, 
could  achieve  in  wood  ?  Each  of  the  Fine  Arts  has  its  own 
subject-matter ;  from  the  nature  of  the  case  you  can  do  in 
one  what  you  can  not  do  in  another ;  you  can  do  in  painting 
what  you  can  not  do  in  carving ;  you  can  do  in  oils  what  you 
can  not  do  in  fresco ;  you  can  do  in  marble  what  you  can  not 
do  in  ivory ;  you  can  do  in  wax  what  you  can  not  do  in 
bronze.  Then  I  repeat,  applying  this  to  the  case  of  languages, 
why  should  not  genius  be  able  to  do  in  Greek  what  it  can  not 
do  in  Latin  ?  and  why  are  its  Greek  and  Latin  works  defec- 
tive because  they  will  not  turn  into  English  ?  That  genius, 
of  which  we  are  speaking,  did  not  make  English ;  it  did  not 
make  all  languages,  present,  past,  and  future ;  it  did  not  make 
the  laws  of  any  language  :  why  is  it  to  be  judged  of  by  that 
in  which  it  had  no  part,  over  which  it  has  no  control?" — 
NEWMAN:  Literature. 

THE  ARTICULATION  OF  THE  PARTS 

In  a  long  forensic  that  falls  naturally  into  several 
sections  related  to  the  main  subject,  but  more  or  less 
independent  of  each  other,  it  is  sometimes  difficult 
to  give  the  effect  of  unity.  The  reader  is  apt  to  have 
a  fragmentary  notion ;  parts  he  remembers,  but  he 
has  only  a  dim  notion  of  their  connection  and  bearing, 
no  sense  of  the  force  of  the  entire  argument.  The 
most  important  means  of  making  a  paper  seem 
unified  is,  of  course,  to  make  it  unified,  to  keep  the 

ARGUMENTATION  —  13 


194  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

central  idea  dominant  and  develop  I,  II,  III,  etc., 
strictly  for  the  purpose  of  proving  the  main  proposi- 
tion, allowing  no  digressions  or  surplusage.  That  is 
the  work  of  the  brief ;  but  even  where  the  relation- 
ship exists  and  is  so  baldly  evident  as  in  the  brief,  we 
are  glad  to  have  the  numbers  and  letters  to  point  it 
out.  In  the  forensic,  where  the  argument  is  not  so 
directly  and  concisely  stated,  and  where  the  letters 
and  numbers  are  not  used,  some  help  is  needed  to 
make  the  average  reader  aware  whither  the  most 
orderly  argument  is  tending.  These  aids  are  the 
introduction,  transitions,  and  the  conclusion. 

The  introduction  may  do  much  toward  making 
clear  what  was  obscure,  toward  winning  a  hostile 
reader  to  take  the  writer's  point  of  view,  and  so  on, 
but  its  most  important  function,  perhaps,  is  to  give 
the  reader  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  question 
as  a  whole,  and  the  bearing  of  the  discussion  of  the 
several  particular  issues  in  reference  to  it.  This 
may  be  done  with  more  or  less  explicitness  and 
formality.  Cardinal  Newman  closes  the  introduction 
to  his  lectures  on  the  purpose  of  the  university  thus  : — 

"I  have  then  to  investigate  in  the  Discourses  which 
follow,  those  qualities  and  characteristics  of  the  intellect 
in  which  its  cultivation  issues  or  rather  consists ;  and  with  a 
view  of  assisting  myself  in  this  undertaking,  I  shall  recur 
to  certain  questions  which  have  already  been  touched  upon. 
These  questions  are  three :  viz.  the  relation  of  intellectual 


ARTICULATION   OF  THE  PARTS  195 

culture,  first,  to  mere  knowledge  ;  secondly,  to  professional 
knowledge  ;  and  thirdly,  to  religious  knowledge.  In  other 
words,  are  acquirements  and  attainments  the  scope  of  a 
University  Education  ?  or  expertness  in  particular  arts  and 
pursuits?  or  moral  and  religious  proficiency  ?  or  something 
besides  these  three?  These  questions  I  shall  examine  in 
succession,  with  the  purpose  I  have  mentioned." 

With  much  less  formality  Stevenson  suggests  the 
divisions  for  his  discussion  of  the  difference  between 
the  Scotch  and  the  English  in  The  Foreigner  at 
Home :  — 

"  England  and  Scotland  differ,  indeed,  in  law,  in  history, 
in  religion,  in  education,  and  in  the  very  look  of  nature  and 
men's  faces,  not  always  widely,  but  always  trenchantly." 

The  less  obvious,  more  incidental  method  of  point- 
ing the  way  is  better  suited  to  the  lighter  subject. 

Another  opportunity  to  give  an  impression  of  to- 
tality, to  present  the  parts  in  relation  to  the  whole, 
comes  at  the  close  of  the  forensic.  The  conclusion 
is  often  used  for  the  purpose  of  summing  up  what 
the  writer  has  sought  to  accomplish  by  the  entire 
paper : — 

"And  now  I  consider  I  have  said  enough  in  proof  of 
the  first  point,  which  I  undertook  to  maintain,  viz.,  the 
claim  of  Theology  to  be  represented  among  the  Chairs 
of  a  University.  I  have  shown,  I  think,  that  exclusive- 
ness  really  attaches,  not  to  those  who  support  that  claim 
but  to  those  who  dispute  it.  I  have  argued  in  its  behalf, 
first,  from  the  consideration  that,  whereas  it  is  the  very 


196  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

profession  of  a  University  to  teach  all  sciences,  on  this  ac- 
count it  can  not  exclude  Theology  without  being  untrue  to 
its  profession.  Next,  I  have  said  that,  all  sciences  being  con- 
nected together,  and  having  bearings  one  on  another,  it  is  im- 
possible to  teach  them  all  thoroughly,  unless  they  all  are  taken 
into  account,  and  Theology  among  them.  Moreover,  I  have 
insisted  on  the  important  influence  "which  Theology  in 
matter  of  fact  does  and  must  exercise  over  a  great  variety  of 
sciences,  completing  and  correcting  them  :  so  that,  granting 
it  to  be  a  real  science  occupied  upon  truth,  it  cannot  be 
omitted  without  great  prejudice  to  the  teaching  of  the  rest. 
And  lastly,  I  have  urged  that,  supposing  Theology  be  not 
taught,  its  province  will  not  simply  be  neglected,  but  will  be 
actually  usurped  by  other  sciences,  which  will  teach,  without 
warrant,  conclusions  of  their  own  in  a  subject-matter  which 
needs  its  own  proper  principles  for  its  due  formation  and 
disposition."  —  NEWMAN  :  The  Idea  of  a  University. 

So  clear  and  direct  a  summary  is  very  welcome 
at  the  close  of  a  long,  intricate  discourse  that  one 
has  followed  eagerly  without  stopping  to  take  one's 
bearings.  Usually  a  writer  chooses  a  more  subtle  but 
not  less  sure  method  of  utilizing  the  conclusion  as  a 
unifying  element.  Instead  of  reiterating  what  he  has 
said  he  gives  his  argument  some  fresh  application 
that  brings  out  effectively  its  force  and  significance. 
Such  a  conclusion  is  that  at  the  close  of  Burke's 
Bristol  speech.  After  discussing  the  several  charges 
he  said :  — 

"  And  now,  gentlemen,  on  this  serious  day,  when  I  come, 
as  it  were,  to  make  up  my  account  with  you,  let  me  take 


ARTICULATION   OF  THE   PARTS  197 

to  myself  some  degree  of  honest  pride  on  the  nature  of 
the  charges  that  are  against  me.  I  do  not  here  stand' 
before  you  accused  of  venality,  or  of  neglect  of  duty.  It  is 
not  said  that,  in  the  long  period  of  my  service,  I  have  in  a 
single  instance  sacrificed  the  slightest  of  your  interests  to  my 
ambition,  or  to  my  fortune.  It  is  not  alleged  that,  to  gratify 
any  anger  or  revenge  of  my  own  or  of  my  party,  I  have 
had  a  share  in  wronging  or  oppressing  any  description  of 
men,  or  any  one  man  in  any  description.  No  !  the  charges 
against  me  are  all  of  one  kind  :  that  I  have  pushed  the 
principles  of  general  justice  and  benevolence  too  far,  further 
than  a  cautious  policy  would  warrant,  and  further  than  the 
opinions  of  many  would  go  along  with  me.  In  every  acci- 
dent which  may  happen  through  life  —  in  pain,  in  sorrow, 
in  depression  and  distress  —  I  will  call  to  mind  this  accusa- 
tion and  be  comforted." 

But  it  is  not  only  at  the  beginning  and  at  the 
end  of  the  argument  that  it  is  desirable  to  have 
its  course  indicated.  After  proving  x,y,  z,  under  I, 
how  shall  the  writer  take  up  II,  without  an  apparent 
break?  By  summing  up  what  has  been  said  and 
relating  it  to  the  main  idea,  the  thought  is  brought 
back  to  the  right  starting  point  for  the  second  chain 
of  argument.  A  transitional  sentence  or  paragraph, 
summing  up  what  has  been  said  and  hinting  at  what 
is  to  come,  must  frequently  be  introduced  as  a  con- 
necting link  between  sections  of  the  argument. 
Such  transitions  are  frequent  in  the  most  informal 
papers ;  in  The  Foreigner  at  Home,  already  referred 
to,  are  such  transitions  as :  — 


198  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

"But  it  is  not  alone  in  scenery  and  architecture  that 
we  count  England  foreign.  The  constitution  of  society,  the 
very  pillars  of  the  empire,  surprise  and  even  pain  us." 

In  more  pretentious  and  formal  discussions  such 
transitions  as  the  following  ones  taken  from  Burke's 
Speech  on  Conciliation  are  necessary  :  — 

"  These,  Sir,  are  my  reasons  for  not  entertaining  that  high 
opinion  of  untried  force,  by  which  many  gentlemen,  for  whose 
sentiments  in  other  particulars  I  have  great  respect,  seem  to 
be  so  greatly  captivated.  But  there  is  still  behind  a  third 
consideration  concerning  this  object,  which  serves  to  deter- 
mine my  opinion  on  the  sort  of  policy  which  ought  to  be 
pursued  in  the  management  of  America,  even  more  than  its 
population  and  its  commerce:  I  mean  its  temper  and 
character? 
Or,— 

"  If  then,  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  this  spirit  of  Ameri- 
can liberty  be  for  the  greater  part,  or  rather  entirely,  imprac- 
ticable ;  if  the  ideas  of  criminal  process  be  inapplicable,  or, 
if  applicable,  are  in  the  highest  degree  inexpedient ;  what 
way  yet  remains?  No  way  is  open  but  the  third  and  last, 
—  to  comply  with  the  American  spirit  as  necessary ;  or,  if 
you  please,  to  submit  to  it  as  a  necessary  evil." 

Introductions,  transitions,  and  conclusions  should  be 
in  a  style  suited  to  the  style  of  the  paper  as  a  whole. 
Every  student  should  know  how  to  write  the  clear, 
direct  introduction,  transitions,  and  conclusion,  that 
belong  to  the  formal  paper ;  but  they  would  be  out 
of  keeping  with  the  style  of  the  rest  of  his  foren- 
sic and  should  be  translated  into  passages  that  point 


ARTICULATION   OF   THE   PARTS  199 

the  way  more  casually,  more  incidentally,  without 
drawing  so  much  attention  to  themselves.  Often 
these  aids  to  coherence  are  so  obvious  and  rigid  that 
they  remind  one  forcibly  of  the  brief.  One  is  aware 
of  the  brief  not  as  an  informing  bony  structure,  but 
as  an  external  visible  coat  of  mail. 

Not  only  in  the  style  but  in  the  phraseology  of  the 
introduction,  transitions,  and  conclusions  should  the 
student  guard  against  stilted  reminders  of  the  brief. 
He  should  avoid  such  phrases  as,  "  the  material  is- 
sues," "the  proposition,"  "refutation";  he  should 
vary  the  expression  for  the  relationship  between 
proposition  and  proof,  and  not  eternally  use  "  for  " ; 
he  should  not  announce  that  he  "  has  proved  "  or  is 
"  going  to  prove." 

Less  excusable  than  these  faults,  and  even  more 
serious,  is  that  of  introducing  into  the  forensic  the 
jargon  of  the  academic  debate.  Some  students  seem 
to  think  that  such  expressions  as  "  we  of  the  affirma- 
tive," "the  negative,"  "our  contention  is,"  "it  is 
admitted  by  both  sides,"  etc.,  are  essential  to  argu- 
mentation, and  when  they  sit  down  to  write  a  forensic 
it  is  as  if  they  represented  a  debating  team  with  an 
organized  opposed  force.  The  style  here  should  be 
free  from  affectation,  simple,  and  natural.  The 
brief  should  be  felt  throughout  as  giving  strength 
and  symmetry  to  the  forensic,  but  it  should  never 
declare  itself. 


200  PROVING   THE    PROPOSITION 


EXERCISES 

1.  What  are  the  strong  points  of  the  following  passage 
considered  as  an  introduction  :  — 

"  As  I  sit  at  my  work  at  home,  which  is  at  Hammersmith, 
close  to  the  river,  I  often  hear  some  of  that  ruffianism  go 
past  the  window,  of  which  a  good  deal  has  been  said  in  the 
papers  of  late,  and  has  been  said  before  at  recurring  periods. 
As  I  hear  the  yells  and  shrieks  and  all  the  degradation  cast 
on  the  glorious  tongue  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  as  I  see 
the  brutal  reckless  faces  and  figures  go  past  me,  it  rouses  the 
recklessness  and  brutality  in  me  also,  and  fierce  wrath  takes 
possession  of  me,  till  I  remember,  as  I  hope  I  mostly  do, 
that  it  was  my  good  luck  only  of  being  born  respectable  and 
rich,  that  has  put  me  on  this  side  of  the  window  among 
delightful  books  and  lovely  works  of  art,  and  not  on  the 
other  side,  in  the  empty  street,  the  drink-steeped  liquor- 
shops,  the  foul  and  degraded  lodgings.  I  know  by  my 
own  feelings  and  desires  what  these  men  want,  what  would 
have  saved  them  from  this  lowest  depth  of  savagery : 
employment  which  would  foster  their  self-respect  and  win 
the  praise  and  sympathy  of  their  fellows,  and  dwellings  which 
they  could  come  to  with  pleasure,  surroundings  which  would 
soothe  and  elevate  them,  reasonable  labor,  reasonable  rest. 
There  is  only  one  thing  that  can  give  them  this  —  art." 
—  WILLIAM  MORRIS. 

2.  Write  a  formal  conclusion  to  a  forensic  for  which  the 
foregoing  excerpt  might  serve  as  an  introduction. 

3.  Organize  in  the  form  of  a  brief  the  material  furnished 
by  the  following  summary  :  — 


PERSUASION  201 

"  The  pursuit  of  perfection,  then,  is  the  pursuit  of  sweetness 
and  light.  He  who  works  for  sweetness  and  light,  works  to 
make  reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail.  He  who  works 
for  machinery,  he  who  works  for  hatred,  works  only  for  con- 
fusion. Culture  looks  beyond  machinery;  culture  hates 
hatred ;  culture  has  one  great  passion,  the  passion  for  sweet- 
ness and  light.  It  has  one  even  yet  greater  !  —  the  passion 
for  making  them  prevail.  It  is  not  satisfied  till  we  all  come 
to  a  perfect  man ;  it  knows  that  the  sweetness  and  light  of 
the  few  must  be  imperfect  until  the  raw  and  unkindled  masses 
of  humanity  are  touched  with  sweetness  and  light."  —  MAT- 
THEW ARNOLD  :  Sweetness  and  Light. 

4.  Select  from  literature  a  good  formal  introduction,  an 
informal,  persuasive  introduction,  several  good  formal  transi- 
tions, a  good  formal  conclusion,  a  good  informal  conclusion. 

5.  Write   a  formal  introduction  and  conclusion  to  the 
forensic  for  which  you  have  prepared  the  brief. 

6.  Write  transitions  to  connect  the  various  sections  of  the 
argument. 

7.  Rewrite  your  introduction,  your  transitions,  and  your 
conclusion,  making  them  less   stiff  and  formal  and  giving 
them  literary  quality. 

PERSUASION 

We  have  supposed  ourselves  arguing  always  to 
convince  an  ideal  audience,  one  that  is  impartial,  well 
informed,  critical.  With  such  an  audience  the  strong- 
est argument  is  most  persuasive,  and  the  writer  or 
speaker  may  lose  himself  in  his  argument  without 
thought  of  those  addressed.  Since,  however,  there 


202  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

are  few  ideal  hearers,  and  since  sound  argument  will 
not  always  bring  others  to  accept  your  views,  per- 
suasion, or  the  suiting  the  argument  to  the  hearer,  is 
an  important  element  in  popular  argument  When 
the  orator  takes  advantage  of  the  ignorance  of  his 
hearers  to  move  them  with  specious  reasoning,  with 
a  mere  show  of  logic,  he  is  doing  an  unworthy  thing ; 
when,  however,  he  presents  a  truly  logical  and  con- 
vincing discourse  in  such  a  way  as  to  overcome  preju- 
dice, his  achievement  is  praiseworthy. 

At  this  stage  of  our  work  it  is  best  to  make  a  brief 
with  conviction  alone  in  mind,  but  at  the  same  time 
we  should  recognize  that  persuasion  is  not  less  a  mat- 
ter of  selection  and  arrangement  than  of  expression. 
In  the  following  passage,  Mr.  Joel  Chandler  Harris 
gives  a  bit  of  primitive  persuasion  that  accomplishes 
its  end  because  "  Brer  Rabbit "  knows  the  one  idea 
that  will  appeal  to  "  Brer  Fox  "  :  — 

" '  I  don't  keer  w'at  you  do  wid  me,  Brer  Fox,'  sezee, 
'  so  you  don't  fling  me  in  dat  brier-patch.  Roas'  me,  Brer 
Fox,'  sezee,  '  but  don't  fling  me  in  dat  brier-patch,'  sezee. 

" '  Hit's  so  much  trouble  fer  ter  kindle  a  fier,'  sez  Brer 
Fox,  sezee,  'dat  I  speck  I'll  hatter  hang  you,'  sezee. 

"  *  Hang  me  des  ez  high  as  you  please,  Brer  Fox,'  sez  Brer 
Rabbit,  sezee,  '  but  do  fer  de  Lord's  sake  don't  fling  me  in 
dat  brier-patch,'  sezee. 

" '  I  ain't  got  no  string,'  sez  Brer  Fox,  sezee,  '  en  now  I 
speck  I'll  hatter  drown  you,'  sezee. 

" '  Drown  me  des  ez  deep  ez  you  please,  Brer  Fox,'  sez 


PERSUASION  203 

Brer  Rabbit,  sezee, '  but  do-don't  fling  me  in  dat  brier-patch,' 
sezee. 

" '  Dey  ain't  no  water  nigh,'  sez  Brer  Fox,  sezee,  '  en  now 
I  speck  I'll  hatter  skin  you,'  sezee. 

"'Skin  me,  Brer  Fox,'  sez  Brer  Rabbit,  sezee,  'snatch 
out  my  eyeballs,  t'ar  out  my  years  by  de  roots,  en  cut  off  my 
legs,'  sezee,  '  but  do  please,  Brer  Fox,  don't  fling  me  in 
dat  brier-patch,'  sezee. 

"  Co'se  Brer  Fox  wanter  hurt  Brer  Rabbit  bad  ez  he  kin, 
so  he  cotch  'im  by  de  behime  legs  en  slung  'im  right  in  de 
middle  er  de  brier- patch. 

******* 

"  Brer  Rabbit  was  bleedzed  fer  ter  fling  back  some  er  his 
sass,  en  he  holler  out : 

"'Bred  en  bawn  in  a  brier-patch,  Brer  Fox  —  bred  en 
bawn  in  a  brier-patch  ! '  en  wid  dat  he  skip  out  des  ez  lively 
ez  a  cricket  in  de  embers."  —  JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS  :  Uncle 
Remus. 

The  order  of  presentation  has  much  to  do  with  the 
acceptability  of  an  idea.  An  audience  may  by  de- 
grees be  won  to  receive  with  favor  ideas  that,  given 
at  the  start,  would  have  roused  resistance.  Mark 
Antony's  speech  over  the  body  of  Caesar  furnishes 
us  with  an  example  of  this ;  his  excited  hearers  would 
scarcely  have  permitted  him  to  speak  had  he  begun  — 

"  Then  I,  and  you,  and  all  of  us  fell  down, 
Whilst  bloody  treason  flourish'd  over  us." 
or, 

"...  but  were  I  Brutus, 
And  Brutus  Antony,  there  were  an  Antony 
Would  ruffle  up  your  spirits  and  put  a  tongue 


204  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

In  every  wound  of  Caesar  that  should  move 
The  stones  of  Rome  to  rise  and  mutiny." 

—  SHAKESPEARE  :  Julius  Casar. 

When  we  speak  of  a  persuasive  style  we  usually 
mean  a  style  that  wins  gently  and  pleasantly ;  in  a 
broader  sense,  however,  a  persuasive  style  is  one  that 
effects  the  speaker's  wish.  Whether  it  be  suave  or 
brusque,  gracious  or  austere,  will  depend  upon  the 
audience  to  be  influenced.  There  are  some  with 
whom  a  bluff,  rough-and-ready  style  works  wonders, 
while  a  suggestion  of  the  unctuous  repels  irretriev- 
ably. 

Whether  one  depends  upon  selection,  arrangement, 
or  style,  or  on  all  three,  to  accomplish  his  purpose, 
his  art,  to  succeed,  must  conceal  itself.  We  must,  like 
Antony,  give  the  impression  that,  "  I  am  no  orator, 
as  Brutus  is ;  but  ...  a  plain,  blunt  man."  Men  re- 
sent the  suggestion  of  insincerity  in  a  speaker,  the 
suggestion  that  they  are  being  led  blindfold,  to  some 
goal  that  they  have  no  desire  to  reach  —  wise  men, 
however,  often  feel  justified  in  using  art  to  induce 
men  to  listen  to  what  they  otherwise  might  reject. 

Ruskin's  address  called  Work  is  an  excellent  ex- 
ample of  this.  The  address  was  prepared  to  be  de- 
livered before  workingmen.  Ruskin  begins  as  if  he 
were  not  in  the  least  a  reformer  with  concern  for  the 
conduct  of  his  hearers,  but  as  if  they  were  all  students 
of  economics  interested  in  social  classes,  bent  on  dis- 


PERSUASION  205 

covering  the  distinctions  that  exist  among  industrious 
men,  "  who  whether  they  work  or  whether  they  play 
put  their  strength  into  the  work  and  their  strength 
into  the  game."  These  he  says  are  mainly  four :  — 

I.  Between  those  who  work  and  those  who  play. 

II.  Between  those  who  produce  the  means  of  life 
and  those  who  consume  them. 

III.  Between  those  who  work  with  the  head  and 
those  who  work  with  the  hand. 

IV.  Between  those  who  work  wisely  and  those  who 
work  foolishly. 

The  first  distinction  proves  to  be  mainly  a  device 
to  bring  his  hearers  to  his  idea  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween producer  and  consumer.  By  his  novel  nomen- 
clature he  rouses  curiosity  and  puts  his  audience  into 
a  receptive  state  of  mind.  Had  he  begun  at  once 
with  the  time-honored  "  consumer  "  and  "  producer," 
each  man  would  have  called  up  his  own  long-enter- 
tained, possibly  half  or  wholly  wrong  idea  to  fit  the 
word,  and  Ruskin's  labor  to  modify  and  correct  their 
ideas  would  have  been  futile. 

We  find  on  reading  that  the  only  inevitable  dis- 
tinction is  between  head  workers  and  hand  workers ; 
that  the  other  distinctions  are  wrong  and  must  pass 
away,  but  that  there  must  always  be  head  work  and 
hand  work,  and  that  there  must  always  be  "  rough  " 
men  to  do  the  hand  work  and  "  gentlemen  "  to  do  the 
gentle  work.  If  all  the  other  distinctions  are  wrong 


206  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

and  transient,  why  are  they  not  treated  together  ? 
Why  is  this  fundamental  distinction  slipped  in  be 
tween  them  ?  If  we  think  of  Ruskin  as  trying  to  carry 
his  audience  rather  than  as  trying  to  give  a  coherent 
and  emphatic  exegesis  of  his  subject,  the  question  is 
easily  answered.  It  was  more  persuasive  to  begin 
with  a  distinction  between  the  classes,  that  he  would 
denounce,  that  he  could  speak  of  as  one  sure  to 
pass  away.  Having  shown  his  hearers  his  under- 
standing and  sympathy,  he  now  dares  to  tell  them 
plainly  of  a  distinction  that  he  believes  must  endure, 
taking  pains  to  admit,  in  order  not  to  lose  ground,  that 
under  the  present  system  the  head  work  and  the  hand 
work  are  not  always  assigned  to  those  best  fitted  for 
them  and  that  the  hand  work  is  not  properly  rewarded, 
but  he  remains  firm  on  the  point  that  it  is  not  their 
business,  but  the  business  of  the  head  workers,  to  rec- 
tify the  evils.  He  has  granted  that  one  distinction  is 
unjust  and  forced  them  to  admit  one  to  be  just  —  to 
recognize  their  limitations,  he  now  presents  a  distinc- 
tion that  should  not  endure,  that  makes  for  unhappi- 
ness,  one  that  they  can  help  overcome,  and  proceeds 
to  give  a  sermon  that  each  man  may  take  home  to  his 
bosom  and  business,  a  sermon  which,  if  given  at  the 
outset,  few  would  have  received  willingly. 

The  power  to  win  an  audience  to  care  for  that 
to  which  they  were  indifferent,  to  accept  what  they 
have  willed  not  to  accept,  is  not  to  be  lightly  esteemed. 


PERSUASION  207 

Many  covet  it ;  most  of  us  like  to  watch  the  process 
of  persuasion,  to  note  the  maneuvers  by  which  the 
speaker  brings  about  desired  results,  to  detect  the 
transparent  devices  of  the  teacher  who  holds  the  chil- 
dren as  in  a  spell  while  she  "  talks  down  "  to  them, 
the  adroitness  of  the  demagogue  haranguing  a  ward 
meeting,  the  subtilities  of  the  employer  or  the  union 
leader  pacifying  a  mob  of  strikers.  But  let  any  of 
these  things  be  done  clumsily,  so  that  the  art  is 
patent  to  those  who  should  not  be  aware  of  it,  and 
what  derision  is  roused.  The  effect  must  be  that  of 
sincerity.  It  is  usually  safest  really  to  be  sincere. 
There  are  ways  of  gaining  the  end  without  trickery, 
without  playing  upon  vanity  or  weakness.  Garfield's 
"  God  reigns,  and  the  government  at  Washington  still 
survives  "  sent  the  would-be  avengers  of  Lincoln's 
death  to  their  homes.  The  union  men  assembled  in 
Faneuil  Hall  did  listen  to  President  Eliot  of  Harvard 
while  he  told  them  with  unqualified  directness  what 
he  thought  of  the  system  of  "  picketing "  and  the 
"closed  shop." 

Any  false  emotion  in  a  forensic  weakens  it.  A 
forensic  may  be  challenging,  belligerent,  scornful,  — 
what  not?  if  the  occasion  justifies  the  emotion  and 
the  writer  really  has  it.  But  even  where  there  is 
ample  justification  for  strong  feeling,  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  an  emotional  appeal  makes  the 
deep  and  lasting  impression  that  does  the  utterance 


208  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

of  one,  not  swept  off  his  feet  by  sudden  feeling,  but 
calmly  pronouncing  a  deep-rooted,  dispassionate  view. 

The  highest  sort  of  persuasion  is  that  of  the  man 
who  has  a  genuine  conviction  and  speaks  more  from 
himself  than  to  an  audience.  Such  a  speaker  com- 
pels attention  and  does  not  exasperate  where  he 
strikes  most  relentlessly. 

Cardinal  Newman  appreciated  the  weight  added  to 
an  orator's  words  by  the  sense  that  he  spoke  not  as 
an  employed  advocate,  not  as  the  mouthpiece  of  an 
institution,  but  from  his  life's  experience.  He  said 
in  the  introduction  to  his  discourses  on  The  Idea  of  a 
University  :  — 

"  There  are  several  reasons  why  I  should  open  the  discus- 
sion with  a  reference  to  the  lessons  with  which  past  years 
have  supplied  me.  One  reason  is  this  :  It  would  concern 
me,  Gentlemen,  were  I  supposed  to  have  got  up  my 
opinions  for  the  occasion.  This,  indeed,  would  have  been 
no  reflection  on  me  personally,  supposing  I  were  persuaded 
of  their  truth,  when  at  length  addressing  myself  to  the 
inquiry ;  but  it  would  have  destroyed,  of  course,  the  force  of 
my  testimony,  and  deprived  such  arguments,  as  I  might  ad- 
duce, of  that  moral  persuasiveness  which  attends  on  tried  and 
sustained  conviction.  It  would  have  made  me  seem  the  ad- 
vocate, rather  than  the  cordial  and  deliberate  maintainer  and 
witness,  of  the  doctrines  which  I  was  to  support ;  and  though 
it  might  be  said  to  evidence  the  faith  I  reposed  in  the  prac- 
tical judgment  of  the  Church,  and  the  intimate  concurrence 
of  my  own  reason  with  the  course  she  had  authoritatively 
sanctioned,  and  the  devotion  with  which  I  could  promptly 


PERSUASION  209 

put  myself  at  her  disposal,  it  would  have  cast  suspicion  on 
the  validity  of  reasonings  and  conclusions  which  rested 
on  no  independent  inquiry,  and  appealed  to  no  past  experi- 
ence. In  that  case  it  might  have  been  plausibly  objected 
by  opponents  that  I  was  the  serviceable  expedient  of  an 
emergency,  and  never,  after  all,  could  be  more  than  ingen- 
ious and  adroit  in  the  management  of  an  argument  which 
was  not  my  own,  and  which  I  was  sure  to  forget  again  as 
readily  as  I  had  mastered  it.  But  this  is  not  so.  The 
views  to  which  I  have  referred  have  grown  into  my  whole 
system  of  thought,  and  are,  as  it  were,  part  of  myself.  Many 
changes  has  my  mind  gone  through  :  here  it  has  known  no 
variation  or  vacillation  of  opinion,  and  though  this  by  itself 
is  no  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  principles,  it  puts  a  seal  upon 
conviction  and  is  a  justification  of  earnestness  and  zeal."  — 
NEWMAN  :  The  Idea  of  a  University. 

EXERCISES 

i.  Imagine  yourself  in  the  place  of  Major  Rogers  at  the 
close  of  the  French  and  Indian  War,  and  translate  the  follow- 
ing paragraph  into  such  an  address  as  he  might  have  made 
to  the  Indian  chief  Pontiac  when  the  latter,  unaware  that  the 
war  was  ended,  tried  to  impede  his  progress  on  the  way  to 
Detroit :  — 

The  war  is  over.  The  English  have  conquered  the  French, 
and  I  have  come  with  my  men  to  take  possession  of  Detroit 
according  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty.  If  you  will  transfer 
your  allegiance  to  the  king  of  England,  he  will  hold  the 
French  responsible  for  your  previous  enmity  and  grant  you 
liberal  terms  of  peace ;  or,  — 

Suppose  yourself  in  Thomas  Jefferson's  place  when,  dur- 
ing his  ministry  to  France,  he  received  a  letter  from  his 

ARGUMENTATION —  14 


210  PROVING   THE   PROPOSITION 

fifteen -year-old  daughter  Martha  declaring  her  intention  to 
become  a  nun.  Tell  what  you  think  he  must  have  said  to 
her  to  induce  her  cheerfully  to  leave  the  convent  school  and 
go  home  with  him  to  a  life  in  which  much  of  her  father's 
comradeship,  private  tutors,  and  social  gayety  were  the  main 
features. 

2.  From  what  point  of  view  is  Becky's  letter  persuasive? 
Why  does  it  fail? 

" '  You  will  now,  if  you  please,  my  dear,  sit  down  at  the 
writing-table  and  pen  me  a  pretty  little  letter  to  Miss 
Crawley,  in  which  you'll  say  that  you  are  a  good  boy,  and 
that  sort  of  thing.'  So  Rawdon  sate  down,  and  wrote  off, 
'Brighton,  Thursday,'  and  'My  dear  aunt,'  with  great 
rapidity;  but  there  the  gallant  officer's  imagination  failed 
him.  He  mumbled  the  end  of  his  pen,  and  looked  up  in 
his  wife's  face.  She  could  not  help  laughing  at  his  rueful 
countenance,  and  marching  up  and  down  the  room,  with 
her  hands  behind  her,  the  little  woman  began  to  dictate  a 
letter,  which  he  took  down. 

" '  Before  quitting  the  country  and  commencing  a  cam- 
paign, which  very  possibly  may  be  fatal  — ' 

"'What?'  said  Rawdon,  rather  surprised,  but  took  the 
humour  of  the  phrase,  and  presently  wrote  it  down  with  a 
grin. 

"'Which  very  possibly  may  be  fatal,  I  have  come 
hither  ....  to  say  farewell  to  my  dearest  and  earliest 
friend.  I  beseech  you  before  I  go,  not  perhaps  to  return, 
once  more  to  let  me  press  the  hand  from  which  I  have 
received  nothing  but  kindness  all  my  life.' 

" '  Kindness  all  my  life,'  echoed  Rawdon,  scratching  down 
the  words,  and  quite  amazed  at  his  own  facility  of  composition. 


PERSUASION  211 

" '  I  ask  nothing  from  you  but  that  we  should  part  not  in 
anger.  I  have  the  pride  of  my  family  on  some  points, 
though  not  on  all.  I  married  a  painter's  daughter,  and  am 
not  ashamed  of  the  union.' 

" '  No,  run  me  through  the  body  if  I  am ! '  Rawdon 
ejaculated. 

" '  You  old  booby,'  Rebecca  said,  pinching  his  ear  and 
looking  over  to  see  that  he  made  no  mistakes  in  spelling  — 
'beseech  is  not  spelt  with  an  a,  and  earliest  is.'  So  he 
altered  these  words,  bowing  to  the  superior  knowledge  of 
his  little  missis. 

"'  I  thought  that  you  were  aware  of  the  progress  of  my 
attachment,'  Rebecca  continued ;  '  I  knew  that  Mrs.  Bute 
Crawley  confirmed  and  encouraged  it.  But  I  make  no 
reproaches.  I  married  a  poor  woman,  and  am  content  to 
abide  by  what  I  have  done.  Leave  your  property,  dear 
aunt,  as  you  will.  /  shall  never  complain  of  the  way  in 
which  you  dispose  of  it.  I  would  have  you  believe  that  I 
love  you  for  yourself,  and  not  for  money's  sake  —  I  want  to 
be  reconciled  to  you  ere  I  leave  England.  Let  me,  let  me 
see  you  before  I  go.  A  few  weeks  or  months  hence  it  may 
be  too  late,  and  I  cannot  bear  the  notion  of  quitting  the 
country  without  a  kind  word  of  farewell  from  you.' 

" '  She  won't  recognize  my  style  in  that,'  said  Becky.  '  I 
made  the  sentences  short  and  brisk  on  purpose.' 

******* 

"  Old  Miss  Crawley  laughed  when  Briggs,  with  great  mys- 
tery, handed  her  over  this  candid  and  simple  statement. 
'  We  may  read  it  now  Mrs.  Bute  is  away,'  she  said.  '  Read 
it  to  me,  Briggs.' 

"When  Briggs  had  read  the  epistle  out,  her  patroness 
laughed  more.  '  Don't  you  see,  you  goose,'  she  said  to 


212  PROVING  THE   PROPOSITION 

Briggs,  who  professed  to  be  much  touched  by  the  honest 
affection  which  pervaded  the  composition,  —  '  don't  you  see 
that  Rawdon  never  wrote  a  word  of  it?  He  never  wrote 
to  me  without  asking  for  money  in  his  life,  and  all  his  letters 
are  full  of  bad  spelling,  and  dashes,  and  bad  grammar.  It 
is  that  little  serpent  of  a  governess  who  rules  him.'  "  — 
THACKERAY:  Vanity  Fair. 

3.  Select  from  literature  good  examples  of  persuasion. 

4.  Tell  what  you  think  Macaulay  meant  by  each  of  the 
supporting  propositions  in  the  following  bit  of  argument  to 
prove  Hume  an  "  accomplished  advocate."     Charged  against 
a  forensic  writer,  should  you  think  the  practices  here  enumer- 
ated praiseworthy  or  damaging,  and  why? 

"  Hume  is  an  accomplished  advocate ;  without  positively 
asserting  much  more  than  he  can  prove,  he  gives  prominence 
to  all  the  circumstances  which  support  his  case;  he  glides 
lightly  over  those  which  are  unfavorable  to  it ;  his  own 
witnesses  are  applauded  and  encouraged ;  the  statements 
which  seem  to  throw  discredit  on  them  are  controverted ; 
the  contradictions  into  which  they  fall  are  explained  away ; 
and  a  clear  and  connected  abstract  of  their  evidence  is 
given ;  everything  that  is  offered  on  the  other  side  is  scruti- 
nized with  the  utmost  severity;  every  suspicious  circum- 
stance is  ground  for  comment  and  invective ;  what  can  not 
be  denied  is  passed  by  without  notice ;  concessions  are  some- 
times made,  but  this  insidious  candor  only  increases  the  effect 
of  the  vast  mass  of  sophistry."  —  T.  B.  MACAULAY  :  History. 

5.  Complete  and  pass  in  the  forensic  upon  which  you 
have  been  working. 


RESEARCH 


213 


RESEARCH 

A  FORENSIC  that  is  the  result  of  "  cramming  "  on 
one  phase  of  a  subject  with  which  the  writer  is  un- 
familiar is  apt  to  be  ridiculous.  A  subject  that  re- 
quires research  may,  however,  be  treated  with  great 
profit  to  the  student,  and  with  a  high  degree  of  suc- 
cess, if  the  student  makes  intelligent  and  thorough 
preparation  for  his  work.  The  preparation  for  such 
a  paper  is  the  most  difficult  and  time-consuming  part 
of  the  work,  and  for  that  reason  a  student  in  an  Eng- 
lish composition  class  can  rarely  afford  to  write 
papers  that  call  for  research. 

An  intelligent  system  will  greatly  help  a  student 
to  economize  effort.  Attention  should  first  be  di- 
rected to  getting  into  the  atmosphere  of  the  subject, 
so  to  speak,  to  acquiring  such  information  as  will 
make  the  student  sympathetically  at  home  in  the 
subject ;  the  second  essential  is  to  get  a  general  back- 
ground of  information,  so  that  he  can  regard  the 
question  not  as  isolated,  but  in  its  relation  to  other 
questions ;  the  third  and  last  step  is  to  get  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  and  to  collect  evidence  bearing  on 
the  specific  question  to  be  argued. 

Where  the  question  concerns  measures  or  persons, 
215 


216  RESEARCH 

or  events  or  places,  or  anything  outside  of  the  writer's 
range  of  experience,  in  order  to  escape  giving  it  a 
wooden,  dead  treatment  he  must  himself  comprehend 
the  question  as  a  real  and  vital  one. 

To  talk  with  those  whose  experience  has  touched 
upon  or  included  the  period,  the  place,  the  men,  con- 
cerned, is  an  excellent  way  to  attain  this  object.  Half 
an  hour's  talk  with  such  a  man  as  Prince  Kropotkin 
will  give  one  more  realization  of  the  civil  injustices 
existing  in  Russia  than  hours  of  diligent  reading.  If  I 
had  chosen  a  question  pertaining  to  our  own  civil  war, 
I  should  wish  to  talk  with  those  who  had  actually  felt 
the  battle,  with  those  whose  dooryards  had  been 
battlefields,  with  the  daughter  of  an  Abolitionist 
who  still  thrills  at  the  memory  of  five  years  spent  in 
sustained  elation  of  earnest  devotion  to  a  high  prin- 
ciple ;  I  should  wish  to  talk  with  the  man  south  of  the 
Ohio  who  was  burned  in  effigy  and  driven  from  town 
for  voting  for  Lincoln,  to  the  Copperhead  on  the 
northern  shore  who  knew  something  of  the  dark  plans 
of  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  ;  I  should  like  to 
turn  over  the  old  files  of  Horace  Greeley's  news- 
paper, to  look  over  the  war  numbers  of  Harpers' 
Weekly,  and  read  its  editorials  and  war  bulletins, 
look  at  its  cartoons  and  caricatures  of  characters  we 
suppose  always  to  have  been  canonized.  '•-• : 

Personal  journals  and  letters  contribute  much 
towards  making  the  past  seem  present,  the  remote 


RESEARCH  2 IJ 

seem  near.  The  novelist  or  the  dramatist  often  ef- 
fectively transports  one  to  strange  scenes  and  untried 
conditions.  If  one  would  gain  the  point  of  view  of 
those  concerned  in  the  industrial  conflict  of  to-day, 
Charles  Reade's  Put  Yourself  in  his  Place  and 
F.  Hopkinson  Smith's  Tom  Grogan  present  the 
"  scab  "  as  the  victim  of  the  "  union  " ;  Robert  Herrick's 
Web  of  Life  shows  the  "  union  "  men  as  victims  of  the 
labor  agitators  ;  Henry  James's  Princess  Casamassima 
and  E.  L.  Voynich's  Olive  Latham  show  the  agitators 
as  victims  of  mistaken  ideals. 

The  danger  at  this  stage  of  the  work  is  lest  one 
should  get  prejudice  rather  than  sympathy.  If  one 
would  determine  whether  the  private  home  was  better 
than  the  large  asylum  for  orphan  children,  it  is  not 
enough  to  see  in  Sudermann's  drama,  The  Fires  of  St. 
John,  the  kindly-cared-for  "  calamity  child's  "  craving 
for  a  bit  of  the  true  devotion  she  has  discovered  to 
exist  and  ready  to  gain  it  at  any  cost  of  her  own  honor 
or  the  happiness  of  others ;  it  is  not  enough  to  read 
of  the  "  private  home  " ,  boy  who  considers  himself 
handicapped  for  life,  because  he  has  missed  the 
training  that  the  institutional  child  can  not  escape  — 
one  should  see  as  well  the  asylum  children  with  their 
placid,  dully  content  little  faces. 

The  second  step  is  to  read  around  one's  subject  to 
get  a  background  of  knowledge  for  it ;  to  see  it  not 
as  an  isolated  unrelated  unit;  but  to  comprehend  it 


2l8  RESEARCH 

in  its  right  relation  to  other  subjects.  For  example,  it 
would  be  folly  to  try  to  treat  the  question  of  the  Sub- 
way Tavern's  prospect  of  success  as  a  temperance 
measure  without  knowing  about  saloons  in  general, 
without  knowledge  of  coffee-room  and  neighborhood- 
house  experiments,  without  knowing  the  effect  of 
stringent  liquor  laws,  and  attempts  at  total  abstinence, 
without  knowing  the  Bowery,  and  the  statutes  govern- 
ing the  sale  of  alcoholic  liquors  in  New  York.  Of 
course,  much  of  the  knowledge  gained  on  these  kin- 
dred subjects  will  be  of  direct  use  in  the  argument. 

When  at  last  the  student  reaches  the  field  that  his 
question  covers  he  still  has  important  work  to  do.  A 
hasty  review  of  a  few  good  magazine  articles  support- 
ing the  side  he  has  decided  to  take  will  not  suffice. 
He  must  read  thoroughly  on  both  sides  of  the  ques- 
tion. It  is  always  desirable  to  get  at  the  source  of 
information,  to  get  back  to  the  document  from  which 
most  recent  writers  have  drawn  the  evidence  on  which 
they  have  founded  their  conclusions.  This  is  some- 
times a  very  simple  and  valuable  piece  of  work. 
Thus,  nearly  all  the  historic  accounts  of  the  work  of 
Daniel  Boone,  nearly  all  the  elaborate  biographical 
treatises  concerning  him,  have  as  their  entire  basis 
the  brief  and  quaintly  worded  Narrative  written  by 
the  old  pioneer  himself.  But  the  original  source, 
however  valuable,  is  not  enough.  Men  of  old  time 
were  no  more  impeccable  than  men  to-day  ;  and  men 


RESEARCH  219 

of  to-day  of  entire  integrity  of  purpose  often  make 
serious  mistakes  in  reporting  occurrences.  It  is 
therefore  indispensable  that  one  should  have  also  the 
benefit  of  the  latest  word  on  the  subject,  the  benefit 
of  the  work  of  the  wary  and  critical  scholar  who  has 
discovered  inconsistencies  and  mistakes. 

Cross  lights  are  also  important.  An  historical  sub- 
ject has  not  been  thoroughly  investigated  till  the  biog- 
raphies of  the  history  makers  of  the  period  have  been 
studied;  the  literature,  the  art,  the  monuments,  the 
maps  of  an  epoch  should  be  searched  as  witnesses. 

As  a  rule  it  is  bad  economy  to  waste  labor  in  do- 
ing over  what  has  been  done  for  one,  but  that  is  what 
we  are  most  of  the  time  doing  in  schools  and  colleges. 
Most  large  libraries  have  excellent  card  catalogues 
from  which  it  is  easy  to  make  up  a  bibliography  on 
almost  any  subject.  Still,  there  are  always  times 
when  such  a  catalogue  is  not  available,  and  every  stu- 
dent should  know  how  to  make  a  bibliography  for  him- 
self. If  one  knows  how  to  go  about  it,  he  may  often 
serve  himself  better  than  the  trained  specialist  will. 
A  college  debating  team  employed  a  specialist  to  make 
for  them  a  list  of  references  on  the  subject  of  their 
debate ;  but  it  was  so  long  in  coming  that  they  set  to 
work  and  made  one  for  themselves  that  proved  to  be 
more  complete  and  valuable  than  the  one  for  which 
they  paid  ten  dollars. 

Pooles  Index  is,  of  course,  the  standard  index  for 


220  RESEARCH 

periodic  publications.  In  making  a  bibliography,  first 
consult  Poolers  Index,  looking  up  the  various  heads 
under  which  an  article  on  the  question  might  be  cata- 
logued. As  soon  as  an  article  on  your  subject  is  found, 
make  a  note  not  only  of  it  but  of  its  author.  Then 
look  again  through  Pooles  Index  for  articles  by  these 
authors  —  this  time  looking  by  authors  instead  of  sub- 
jects. It  is  probable  that  if  they  are  working  on  the 
subject  and  have  published  at  all,  they  have  published 
several  articles,  some  of  them  under  obscure  titles 
that  escaped  your  search  by  subjects.  Having  com- 
pleted your  search  through  all  the  volumes  of  Poolers 
Index  both  by  subjects  and  authors  and  carefully 
noted  all  articles  found,  with  authors,  the  student 
should  next  go  to  the  American  Catalog  or  to  the 
index  for  the  Publishers'  Trade  List  Annual,  which 
contains  a  list  of  the  books  published  during  recent 
years  by  nearly  every  publishing  house  in  the  country. 
Look  up  your  subject  by  topics  as  before  and  take 
note  of  authors.  Then  look  through  the  index  for 
the  authors  you  entered  on  your  list,  either  from 
the  index  of  the  Publishers'  Trade  List  Annual  or 
from  Poolers  Index  —  the  difference  is  that  first  you 
were  looking  for  magazine  articles,  now  you  are  look- 
ing for  books.  In  the  third  place,  you  should,  in  like 
manner,  look  through  the  Peabody  Institute  Catalogue 
for  books  and  pamphlets  on  the  subject,  that  may  now 
be  out  of  print.  You  may  further  supplement  your 


RESEARCH  221 

search  by  reference  to  The  A.  L.  A.  Index  to  General 
Literattire,  which  is  a  guide  to  essays,  reports,  etc., 
published  in  collections  and  so  not  indexed  in  ordinary 
catalogues.  The  A.  L.  A.  Index  to  General  Litera- 
ture, Poolers  Index,  the  American  Catalog,  a  Pub- 
lishers' 7^rade  List  Annual  Index,  and  a  Peabody 
Institute  Catalogue  belong  to  the  equipment  of  even 
the  most  limited  college  or  public  library. 

At  the  start  one  should  exert  some  ingenuity  to 
think  of  possible  cross  reference.  If  one  were  discuss- 
ing the  removal  of  the  Seminole  Indians  from  Florida 
to  land  west  of  the  Mississippi,  one  should  look  for 
Seminoles,  Creeks,  History  of  Alabama,  History  of 
Florida,  Seminole  War,  Florida  War,  General  Clinch, 
General  Jackson,  Osceola,  and  other  Indian  leaders, 
the  maroons,  runaway  slaves,  etc.,  for  facts ;  Cooper, 
Helen  Hunt  Jackson,  Jefferson,  Irving,  Parkman,  etc., 
for  atmosphere. 

To  read  an  important  work  on  a  subject  (such  as 
Sprague's  Florida  War  on  the  subject  just  considered) 
and  make  note  of  persons,  events,  other  works  on  the 
subject,  that  seem  to  the  author  to  be  of  importance, 
is  a  good  way  to  get  a  nucleus  from  which  to  start  a 
bibliography. 

Libraries,  publishing  houses,  and  old-book  shops 
will  furnish  many  of  the  books  needed.  In  Mr. 
Harry  Thurston  Peck's  Life  of  Prescott  the  following 
comparison  occurs :  — 


222  RESEARCH 

"  Irving  resembled  Livy  in  his  use  of  authorities.  Such 
sources  as  were  ready  to  his  hand  and  easy  to  consult  he 
used  with  conscientious  care :  but  those  that  were  further 
afield,  and  for  the  mastery  of  which  both  time  and  labor 
were  demanded,  he  let  alone.  .  .  .  Compare  these  easy- 
going methods  with  the  scientific  thoroughness  of  Prescott, 
his  ransacking,  by  agents,  of  every  important  library  in 
Europe,  his  great  collection  of  original  documents,  the 
many  years  which  he  gave  to  the  study  of  them,  and  the 
conscientious  judgment  with  which  he  weighed  and  balanced 
them.  .  .  ." 

The  practical  difficulties  that  prevent  a  student's 
getting  at  many  of  the  valuable  sources  on  his  sub- 
ject make  it  necessary  that  he  should  for  the  present 
content  himself  with  the  method  of  Irving,  but  it 
should  always  be  with  inner  protest  and  with  Pres- 
cott's  method  in  mind  as  his  ideal  for  his  own  future 
study. 

It  would  be  as  undesirable  as  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble for  the  student  to  read  all  the  articles  and  books 
he  can  obtain.  He  must  early  begin  to  cultivate  a 
sense  for  an  important  document  Sometimes  the 
reputation  of  a  book  or  its  author  will  enable  him  to 
rank  it  as  reliable  or  worth  while.  But  not  all  popu- 
lar works  are  sound,  and  many  works  that  are  unknown 
to  the  student  may  be  of  the  highest  importance.  He 
must,  therefore,  ultimately  depend  on  his  own  judg- 
ment ;  he  must  reac  critically,  cross-examining  his 
witnesses  as  he  goes,  seeing  that  they  sustain  their 


RESEARCH  223 

assertions,  that  they  take  an  impartial  view,  sup- 
pressing no  damaging  evidence  and  making  no  false 
charges ;  that  they  are  sensible,  exact,  thorough,  cau- 
tious, sure,  genuine. 

Even  reliable  works  should  not  always  be  thor- 
oughly read.  The  ability  to  "  skip  "  intelligently,  to 
pounce  on  the  heart  of  a  paragraph  or  chapter  and 
take  possession  of  it,  is  indispensable  in  research. 
The  student  must  read  with  a  sense  of  proportion, 
not  lavishing  time  and  strength  on  the  beginning  at 
such  a  rate  that  the  end  must  be  slighted.  An  en- 
thusiastic beginning  is  always  admirable,  but  to  carry 
a  thing  through  adequately  is  not  less  admirable. 

While  reading,  the  student  should  take  such  notes 
as  he  may  wish  to  use  in  his  argument.  These  should 
be  concise  and  exact,  with  accurate  references  to 
author,  title  of  book  or  article,  page,  volume,  and 
publisher.  This  is  important,  as  in  a  brief  for  an 
argument  that  requires  research  it  is  necessary  defi- 
nitely to  note  in  the  margin  the  source  of  whatever 
you  cite  as  evidence. 


INDEX 


ADAMS,  C.  F.,  Life  and  Works  of 

J.  Adams,  164. 
ADAMS,  J.,  letter  from,  163. 
A.  L,  A.,  Index  to  General  Litera- 
ture, 220. 

American  Catalog,  220. 
ANDERSEN,  H.  C.,  The  Ugly  Duck- 
ling, 140. 

Argument,  A  posteriori,  \  29. 
A  priori,  129. 
By  analogy,  1 29. 
From  authority,  132. 
In  the  introduction  to  brief,  77, 

78. 

Argumentation,  chapter  on  the 
purposes  and  the  uses  of,  n- 
14. 

Definition  of,  II. 
Student's  aim  in,  27. 
ARNOLD,  M.,  Sweetness  and  Light, 


Arrangement   of  propositions   for 

brief,  94,  95. 
Art  in  oratory,  204,  207. 
Assertion,  not  proof,  III. 
Audience,  for  brief,  57. 

For  forensic,  179. 

Ideal,  201. 

ARGUMENTATION — 15  225 


Authorities,  use  of,  221. 
Authority,  argument  from,  132. 

Disinterested,  132. 

Refutation  of,  156. 

B 

Background   of  knowledge,   215- 

218. 

BAKER,  G.  P.,  Principles  of  Argu- 
mentation, 21. 
BALDWIN,  C.  S.,  A   College  Man- 

«#/  of  Rhetoric,  21. 
Bibliographies,  219. 

Reference  books  for,  220. 
Brief,  content  of :  evidence,  kinds 

of,  128-148. 

Quantity  of  collateral,  108-110. 
Quantity    of   subordinate,   IIO- 

114. 

Refutation,  148-160. 
Brief,   form   of:    arrangement   of 

propositions  in  brief,  94,  95. 
Conclusion  of,  92. 
Connectives  in,  90,  91. 
Improper  coordination  in,  86. 
Introduction    to,    see  Introduc- 
tion. 

Model,  52-56. 
Numbering  parts  of,  92-95. 


226 


INDEX 


Propositions    simple    and  com- 
plete in,  90. 
Brief,  how  to  read  a,  94,  95. 

Importance  of,  51-57. 

Manifest  in  forensic,  199. 

Purpose  of,  56. 

Relation  to  forensic,  179. 
Briefs  given  :     Lincoln's   brief  in 
suit  against  pension  agent,  51. 

On,  Corporal  punishment  is  an 
objectionable  mode  of  punish- 
ing children,  86-90. 

On,  The  termite  is  an  important 
agricultural  agent  in  tropical 
Africa,  52-56. 

Briefs,  material  for :  on,  Horace 
Roberts  should  have  a  college 
education,  118. 

On,  Such  saloons  as  the  subway 
tavern  would  promote  the 
cause  of  temperance  in  New 
York  City,  97-100. 

On,  Whittier's  poems  show  him 
to  have  been  an  abolitionist, 
120-127. 
BURKE,  E.,  Bristol  Speech,  196. 

Conciliation  with  the  American 
Colonies,  102-107,  184,  198. 


CARLYLE,  T.,   Heroes    and  Hero 

Worship,  139. 
The  Nigger  Question,  190. 
Circle,  reasoning  in,  158. 
Classification  of  evidence,  85. 
Compound  propositions,  150,  151. 
Conclusion,  connectives  in,  92. 


Of  brief,  92. 

Of  forensic,  195. 

To  enforce  principal  idea,  196. 

To  summarize,  195. 

Style  of,  198. 
Connectives,  in  brief,  90,  91. 

In  conclusion,  92. 
Coordination,  improper,  86. 
Cross  references,  219,  221. 


DAVIS,  R.  H.,  Gallegher  and  Other 

Stories,  161. 

Debate,  jargon  of,  in  forensic,  199. 
Deductive  reasoning,  31. 
Definition  of  terms,  75,  76. 

By  synonym,  76. 
DE  QUINCEY,  1.,Joan  of  Arc,  187- 

190. 
DICKENS,  C,  David   Copperfield, 

144. 
DRUMMOND,  H.,  Tropical  Africa, 

52-56,  101. 


ELIOT,  GEORGE,  Romola,  160. 
EMERSON,  R.  W.,  Napoleon,  22. 

Self-Reliance,  138,  166. 
Emphasis,  113,  114,  136,  137. 
Enthymeme  explained,  32. 
Evidence,  classification  of,  84-107. 

Kinds  of,  128-148. 

Not  enough  collateral,  108-110. 

Of  senses,  128. 

Quantity  of,  107-1 14. 

Related  to  proposition,  91. 


INDEX 


227 


Fable,  The  Ant  and  the  Fly,  162 

The  Donkey  and  the  Load  o; 

Salt,  36. 

Fallacies,  their  cause,  150. 
Fallacy,  of  illicit  assumption,  150. 
151. 

Of  irrelevant  argument,  157. 

Of  reasoning  in  a  circle,  158. 
False  premise,  150,  151,  154. 
FISKE,  J.,  The  Mystery  of  Evil,  191. 
For,  connective  in  brief,  90,  91. 
Forensic,  articulation  of  parts  of, 
193-201. 

Brief  manifest  in,  199. 

Development  of,  179-201. 

Conclusion  of,  to  enforce  princi- 
pal idea,  195,  196. 

Connection  of  parts  in,  197. 

Emotion  in,  207. 

Introduction  to,  194. 

Relation  to  brief,  1 79. 

Reminders  of  brief,  199. 

Repetition  in,  184. 

Style  of,  199. 

Transitions  in,  197. 

Use  of  other  forms  of  discourse 
in,  181. 


Generalization,  errors  in,  29,  30. 
Griffins,  true  and   false,   170-178. 

H 

HAGGARD,    H.    R.,    Incident  con- 
cerning Dog  of,  39. 
HAPGOOD,  N.,  Washington,  24. 


HARRIS,  J.  C,  Uncle  Remus,  202. 
HAWTHORNE,  N.,  The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables,  143. 


Illicit  assumption,  150,  151. 
Indexes  for  references  in  research, 

220. 

Inductive  reasoning  denned,  28. 
Initiative,  value  of,  17,  18. 
Introduction  to  brief,  57-84. 
Argument  in,  76,  77,  78. 
Definition  of  terms  in,  75,  76. 
Origin  of  question  stated  in,  74. 
Overloading,  76,  77. 
Propositions  only  in,  78-81. 
Purpose  of,  58,  60,  62,  69. 
Syllogism  as  a  test  of,  65-74. 
Introductions  to  briefs,  given  for 
criticism      and      suggestion : 
Ernest  Thompson  Seton's  ani- 
mal stories  cultivate  in  boys 
the  right  attitude  toward  ani- 
mals, 82. 

Football  is  a  brutal  sport,  69. 
George  Junior    Republic's  con- 
tinuance justified,  63. 
General   house  work  better  for 
Sally  Brown  than  factory  work, 
63- 

Mary  Jones  should  go  to    col- 
lege, 63. 

Modern  illustrative  methods 
have  not  contributed  largely 
to  real  education,  83. 
Prisons  should  be  made  places 
of  reform  rather  than  punish- 
ment, 62. 


228 


INDEX 


The  present  method  of  celebrat- 
ing the  Fourth  of  July  should 
be  changed,  70. 
The     regular     school     holiday 

should  be  Monday,  81. 
The  Star  and  The  Record  should 

consolidate,  64. 
Introduction  to  forensic,  194. 
Introductions   for   analysis :    Lin- 
coln's   Cooper    Institute    Ad- 
dress, 71. 

Lincoln's  Springfield  Address,  7 1 . 

Macaulay  on  the  Reform  Bill,  72. 

IRVING,  W.,  Knickerbocker  History 

cf  New  York,  139. 
Issues,   material   and   immaterial, 

56-65. 

Exercises  on,  62-65. 
Specific  and  general,  58. 

J 

JEFFERSON,  T.,  letter  from,  163. 


LAMB,  C.,  Old  China,  183. 
LINCOLN,  A.,  brief  for  suit  against 

pension  agent,  51. 
Introduction     to     Address     at 

Cooper  Institute,  71. 
Introduction  to  Springfield  Ad- 
dress, 71. 

LOWELL,  J.  R.,   The  Independent 
in  Politics,  102. 

M 

MACAULAY,  T.  B.,  History,  212. 
History  of  England,  133. 
On  the  Reform  Bill,  72,  154. 


MACKAIL,  J.  \V.,  Life  of  William 

Morris,  120. 

Material,  finding,  215-223. 
MEYNELL,  ALICE,  The  Rhythm  of 

Life,  138. 
Middle  term,  furnished  by  material 

issues,  66. 
Inexact,  108,  109. 
MORRIS,  W.,  quoted,  200. 
MUNSTERBERG,      H.,      American 

Traits,  96,  147. 

N 

Negative     premise,     changed     to 

affirmative,  34. 
Negative    statement    of   question, 

41-43- 
NEWMAN,  J.  H.,  CARDINAL,  The 

Idea    of   a    University,    192, 

194,  195,  208. 
Notes  from  reading,  223. 
Numbering  parts  of  brief,  92—950 


Oratory,  art  of,  204,  207. 

Order  of  evidence  after  conclusion 

explained,  91. 
Organization     of     material,     51- 

179. 

Origin  of  question,  74. 
Originality  of  question,  18. 


Peabody    Institute    Catalogue,  use 

of,  220. 
PECK,   H.    T.,  Life    of  Prescott, 

222. 


INDEX 


229 


Persuasion,  chapter   on,  201-212. 
Due   to   order  of   presentation, 

203. 

Due  to  selection  of  material,  202. 
Due  to  style,  204. 
Plagiarism,  exercises  on,  21-24. 
POE,  E.  A.,  The  Cold  Bug,  112. 
The    Murders      in     the     Rue 

Morgue,    140. 
Poolers  Index,  use  of,  220. 
Premise,  change  from  negative  to 

affirmative,  34. 

Presentation  of  material,  179-214. 
Pioof,  84-178. 
Proposition  for  argument,  chapter 

on  deciding  on,  26—44. 
Chapter  on  stating,  41-48. 
Clearness  of,  45. 
Commensurate   with   argument, 

43>44- 

Not  compound,  46. 
When  negative,  41-43. 
Propositions  in  brief,  preferable  to 

phrases,  78-81. 
Simple,  90. 
Publisher?    Trade    List   Annual, 

index  of,  220. 

PUFFER,    E.,     The    Psychology  of 
Beauty,  135. 


Question,  17-23. 

Debatable  or  not,  19. 
Familiar,  19,  20. 
Original,  16-19. 
Origin  of,  74. 
Right  attitude  toward,  27. 


RANDALL,  H.  S.,  Life  of  Jefferson, 

162-165. 

Reading,  for  background  of  knowl- 
edge, 215,  2 1 6. 
Reasoning,  deductive,  31. 

Exercises  in  syllogistic,  35,  40. 
Inductive,   28. 
References,  cross,  219,  221. 
Refutation,  148-160. 
Amount  of,  148,  149. 
Arrangement  of,  159. 
Of  argument  from  authority,  156. 
Research,  215-223. 

Use  of  authorities  in,  222. 
Resolution,  form  of,  41. 
Revision  of  brief,  1 79. 
RUSKIN,  J.,  Modern  Painters,  22, 

23,  170-178. 

Work,   an  example  of  persua- 
sion, 204-206. 

S 

SAXE,  J.  G.,  The  Blind  Men  and 
the  Elephant,  37. 

Senses,  reliability  of,  128,  131. 

SETON,  E.  T.,    Wild  Animals  I 
Have  Known,  139. 

SHAKESPEARE,  King  Henry  IV, 

144. 

King  Henry  VI,  153. 
Julius  Casar,  115,  168,  204. 

SHALER,  N.  S.,   American  High- 
ways, 145-147. 

Sources  of  information,  218. 

STEELE,  R.,   SIR,    The   Spectator, 
187. 


230 


INDEX 


STETSON,    C.    P.,     In    this    our 

World,  142. 
STEVENSON,  R.  L.,   The  Foreigner 

at  Home,  195,  198. 
Style,  persuasive,  204. 
Syllogism,  as  a  test  of  introduction, 

65-69. 

Explanation  of,  32. 
Synonyms,  denning  by,  76. 


Test  of  introduction,  65-69. 


THACKERAY,  W.  M.,  Vanity  Fair, 

210. 

Transitions,  purpose  of,  197. 
Style  of,  198. 


Unity  of  argument,  193. 

Use  of  catalogues  and  indexes,  220. 

W 

WHITTIER,    J.    G.,    propositions 
given  for  brief  on,  120—127. 


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make  the  narrative  distinct,  memorable,  and  clear. 


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OUTLINES     OF    GENERAL 
HISTORY 

By  FRANK  MOORE  COLBY,  M.A.,  recently  Professor 

of  Economics,  New  York  University 

$1.50 


THIS  volume  provides  at  once  a  general  foundation  for 
historical  knowledge  and  a  stimulus  for  further  reading. 
It  gives  each  period  and  subject  its  proper  historical 
perspective,  and  provides  a  narrative  which  is   clear,  con- 
nected, and  attractive.      From  first  to  last  only  information, 
that  is  really  useful  has  been  included. 

^[  The  history  is  intended  to  be  suggestive  and  not  exhaus- 
tive. Although  the  field  covered  is  as  wide  as  possible,  the 
limitations  of  space  have  obliged  the  writer  to  restrict  the 
scope  at  some  points ;  this  he  has  done  in  the  belief  that  it  is 
preferable  to  giving  a  mere  catalogue  of  events.  For  exam- 
ple, the  history  of  the  United  States  has  not  been  included, 
while  that  of  the  non-Aryan  peoples,  especially  since  the 
beginning  of  the  mediaeval  period,  has  not  received  the 
attention  that  has  been  given  to  the  races  to  which  the  lead- 
ing nations  of  the  world  belong.  The  chief  object  of 
attention  in  the  chapters  on  mediaeval  and  modern  history  is 
the  European  nations,  and  in  treating  them  an  effort  has 
been  made  to  trace  their  development  as  far  as  possible  in  a 
connected  narrative,  indicating  the  causal  relations  of  events. 
Special  emphasis  is  given  to  the  great  events  of  recent  times. 
^|  The  book  is  plentifully  supplied  with  useful  pedagogical 
features.  The  narrative  follows  the  topical  manner  of  treat- 
ment, and  is  not  over-crowded  with  names  and  dates.  The 
various  historical  phases  and  periods  are  clearly  shown  by  a 
series  of  striking  progressive  maps,  many  of  which  are  printed 
in  colors.  The  illustrations  are  numerous  and  finely  exe- 
cuted. Each  chapter  closes  with  a  summary  and  synopsis 
for  review,  covering  all  matters  of  importance. 


AMERICAN    BOOK    COMPANY 

(MS) 


INTRODUCTION    TO   POLITICAL 
SCIENCE 

By  JAMES  WILFORD  GARNER,  Ph.  D.,  Professor  of 
Political  Science,  University  oflllinois 


THIS  systematic  treatise  on  the  science  of  government 
covers  a  wider  range  of  topics  on  the  nature,  origin, 
organization,  and  functions  of  the  state  than  is  found 
in  any  other  college  textbook  published  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. The  unusually  comprehensive  treatment  of  the  various 
topics  is  based  on  a  wide  reading  of  the  best  literature  on  the 
subject  in  English,  German,  French,  and  Italian,  and  the 
student  has  opportunity  to  profit  by  this  research  work  through 
the  bibliographies  placed  at  the  head  of  each  chapter,  as  well 
as  by  means  of  many  additional  references  in  the  footnotes. 
^[  An  introductory  chapter  is  followed  by  chapters  on  the 
nature  and  essential  elements  of  the  state;  on  the  various 
theories  concerning  the  origin  of  the  state;  on  the  forms  of 
the  state;  on  the  forms  of  government,  including  a  discussion 
of  the  elements  of  strength  and  weakness  of  each ;  on  sov- 
ereignty, its  nature,  its  essential  characteristics,  and  its  abiding 
place  in  the  state;  on  the  functions  and  sphere  of  the  state, 
including  the  various  theories  of  state  activity ;  and  on  the 
organization  of  the  state.  In  addition  there  are  chapters  on 
constitutions,  their  nature,  forms,  and  development;  on  the 
distribution  of  the  powers  of  government;  on  the  electorate; 
and  on  citizenship  and  nationality. 

^[  Before  stating  his  own  conclusions  the  author  gives  an  im- 
partial discussion  of  the  more  important  theories  of  the  origin, 
nature,  and  functions  of  the  state,  and  analyzes  and  criticises 
them  in  the  light  of  the  best  scientific  thought  and  practice. 
Thus  the  pupil  becomes  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  science 
as  well  as  with  its  principles  as  recognized  to-day. 


AMERICAN    BOOK    COMPANY 


EDUCATION     IN     THE 
UNITED     STATES 

Edited  by  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER,   President 

of  Columbia  University,  in  the  City  of  New  York 

^2.50 


THE  frequently    expressed   need    for   a    book  giving    a 
complete  view  of  American  education  in  outline  is  satis- 
factorily met  in  this  volume  entitled  "Education  in  the 
United  States." 

^|  The  volume  consists  of  the  twenty  careful  monographs, 
each  written  by  an  eminent  specialist,  on  various  phases  of 
American  education,  which  were  originally  planned  as  part 
of  the  American  educational  exhibit  at  the  International  Ex- 
positions held  at  Paris  in  1900  and  at  St.  Louis  in  1904. 
^j  The  introduction  by  the  editor  sets  forth  the  underlying 
principles  governing  American  educational  activity  to  the 
present  time.  Among  the  authors  of  the  various  monographs 
are:  Commissioner  Draper  of  the  State  of  New  York,  the 
late  Dr.  William  T.  Harris,  formerly  Commissioner  of  Edu- 
cation of  the  United  States,  Dr.  Elmer  Ellsworth  Brown, 
Dr.  Harris's  successor  in  the  Commissionership,  Professor 
Edward  Delavan  Perry  of  Columbia  University,  Professor 
Andrew  F.  West  of  Princeton  University,  President  M.  Carey 
Thomas  of  Bryn  Mawr  College,  etc. ,  etc. 
*f[  The  subjects  of  the  monographs  include  such  important 
topics  as  Educational  Organization  and  Administration,  Train- 
ing of  Teachers,  School  Architecture  and  Hygiene,  Profes- 
sional Education,  Education  of  Defectives,  and  Summer 
Schools  and  University  Extension. 

^j  For  the  benefit  of  teachers,  reading  circles,  and  classes  in 
universities,  colleges  and  normal  schools,  each  monograph 
will  be  published  separately  at  20  cents  and  will  be  furnished 
in  quantities  at  $1  5.00  per  hundred  (net). 


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DESCRIPTIVE 
CATALOGUE    OF    HIGH 
SCHOOL   AND    COLLEGE 

TEXT-BOOKS 

Published  Complete  and  in  Sections 


WE  issue  a  Catalogue  of  High  School  and  College  Text- 
Books,  which  we  have  tried  to  make  as  valuable  and 
as  useful  to  teachers  as  possible.      In   this  catalogue 
are  set  forth  briefly  and  clearly  the  scope  and  leading  charac- 
teristics of  each  of  our  best  text-books.      In  most  cases  there 
are  also  given  testimonials  from  well-known  teachers,  which 
have  been  selected  quite  as  much  for  their  descriptive  qualities 
as  for  their  value  as  commendations. 

^j"  For  the  convenience  of  teachers  this  Catalogue  is  also 
published  in  separate  sections  treating  of  the  various  branches  of 
study.  These  pamphlets  are  entitled  :  English,  Mathematics, 
History  and  Political  Science,  Science,  Modern  Languages, 
Ancient  Languages,  and  Philosophy  and  Education. 
^|  In  addition  we  have  a  single  pamphlet  devoted  to  Newest 
Books  in  every  subject. 

^[  Teachers  seeking  the  newest  and  best  books  for  their 
classes  are  invited  to  send  for  our  Complete  High  School  and 
College  Catalogue,  or  for  such  sections  as  may  be  of  greatest 
interest. 

^j  Copies  of  our  price  lists,  or  of  special  circulars,  in  which 
these  books  are  described  at  greater  length  than  the  space 
limitations  of  the  catalogue  permit,  will  be  mailed  to  any 
address  on  request. 

^[  All  correspondence  should  be  addressed  to  the  nearest 
of  the  following  offices  of  the  company :  New  York,  Cincin- 
nati, Chicago,  Boston,  Atlanta,  San  Francisco. 


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A     000  033  904     4 


